The Dead of Dragonstone
by Decius
Summary: What if 700,000 mostly French, and some Germans, survived the Walking Dead on Corsica? What if a portal opened to Westeros, specifically Dragsonstone, just after the Battle of the Blackwater? What would Stannis do when given the power of a modern military?
1. Chapter 1

**For those of you who have not seen the Walking Dead, the following scene occurred in Season One, Episode Six**  
 _  
Centres for Disease Control, Atlanta, Georgia, approximately two months since the Dead began to Walk._

Edwin Jenner tried to hand the vodka to the redneck, whose name in his fuddled state he could not recall, but the man snatched at it with a mixture of irritation and perhaps desperation.

"It was the French," he breathed softly. He moved to walk the stairs.

"What?" the pretty blonde woman asked, confused.

He sighed to himself. "They were the last ones to hold out, as far as I know." He looked at her intently, trying simultaneously to bury memories and to resurrect them, the pain of the former not quite as urgent as the necessity of the latter. "While our people were bolting out the doors and committing suicide in the hallways, they stayed at their labs until the end. They thought that they were close to a solution." This time, he did turn, and the memories burned away as he looked at the vacant console.

"What happened?" the older African American woman asked, completely without understanding of what he was saying or, worse, its implication.

"The same thing that's happening here," he replied with almost a chuckle from the depths of a gallows. "No power grid. Ran out of juice." He pointed with both hands to the powerless consoles. "The world runs on fossil fuels. I mean, how stupid is that?"

Except, 76% of France's power generation comes from nuclear energy. What if they held out just that little bit longer?

_

No one missed Erik Hossen. He was just a farmer, whose daughter had died of exposure some years before and whose flocks were thin, even by the hungry standards of the barren rock known as Dragonstone. His disappearance from his hovel on the north corner of the island was explained by his neighbours in a dozen different ways, none more convincing or less fanciful than the last, for it was easy for a young man with few friends to fall from the cliffs or be picked off by a predator without notice. After a few days, the rumours ceased and life began to go on. Most spoke about their Lord Stannis' recent defeat at the Blackwater and the loss of half his hoste, many of whom they had known.

For Colonel Jean-Marie Leclerc, of the French _Armée de Terre,_ Erik Hossen was the key to learning how to speak the langauge of Westeros. Because Corsica could not hold and feed more than 700,000 frightened refugees for long. The mostly French, but some Germans and Italians with a smattering of other nationalities, needed a new home. The European mainland was thronged with the dead, and it was to Corsica that the only fully cured survivors had fled, having annihilated the 300,000 or so dead inhabitants, the shambling corpses no match for the gunfire of the French Army and Navy, ably and desperately assisted by elements of the _Bundeswehr_ and some few gunships from the Italian army. How the reactor on the aircraft carrier _Charles de Gaulle_ had somehow imploded and created this ... portal ... to somewhere else was something about which Leclerc did not dwell. The drones showed the edge of a new continent scarcely smaller than Europe, with a medieval population not even one hundredth the size. One did not look such gift horses where they might bite.


	2. Chapter 2

"I am not your enemy!" the red Priestess hotly maintained. Perhaps she even believed it.

Davos did not. "You _are_ my enemy!" he snarled back. He would have liked nothing more than to see this bitch roast in her own flames, though he sometimes thought that the fire would not affect her, other than to boost her popularity among the common folk, who were taking to her beliefs with alarming rapidity and even more fervent devotion and, worse, the troops. The more her red poison spread among the officers and men, the harder it would be to separate her cause from that of Stannis' own.

Stannis himself sat quietly, staring out at the bay, seeing the burning bodies of his men, perishing in the Imp's ... in _Tyrion's_ ... green flames.

Melisandre moved slowly, and gracefully, towards Davos, and was about to speak again, perhaps in her defence or perhaps in Davos' condemnation, but was interrupted by one of the men.

"You Grace!" he panted as he entered the map room. Stannis stood, his irritation evident with every movement, but he had not become one of the foremost commanders of his day by ignoring his own soldiers. It was their devotion to him that had made them follow him home from the debacle of Blackwater Bay, their devotion that had made them follow him into the teeth of the Ironborn during the rebellion, and their devotion that had seen them all through the horror of the siege of Storm's End. Such devotion was earned only by attention.

Though not necessarily through politeness. "What?" he growled at the soldier as Melisandre pulled away from Davos, an odd expression on her face. Were it another woman, Davos might even have believed it to be fear, though he knew her not be afraid of him.

"A ... man ... is here to see you, your Grace," the soldier replied, fearfully. "We couldn't stop him."

Stannis looked at the man in confusion. One of the elements of the military arts upon which he insisted beyond all was training. For all the tricks pulled by Tyrion Lannister at the Blackwater, his men had still killed three for every one of themselves to fall. No soldier should have been able to make it through his guards without him at least physically hearing the struggle to prevent such a thing, and then joining to aid. Commander though he may have been, Stannis knew himself to be a formidable fighter in his own right. "What do you mean, you couldn't stop him?" he enquired.

Two people followed the mortified soldier, a man and a woman, both dressed in similar attire, though it was like nothing Stannis had ever seen. The man was tall, perhaps an inch over six feet, but lean, with hollow cheeks beneath purple ringed dark eyes, with short cropped brown hair. The woman was tall, also, at least for her gender, not much shorter than Davos, and heavily built, but not in any way fat. Both stood with the erect posture he recognised to be the prerogative and hallmark of the military, though neither wore armour, or apparently felt its lack, judging by the lack of caution or fear in their stances as they faced Stannis, Davos, Melisandre, and his men. Their clothing was odd in the extreme. Jacket and trousers of mottled black and grey, in patches meant, he imagined, to blend in with stone or brick background. Neither were armed with blades, though they each wore black belts containing numerous ... pouches ..., with an odd looking half-rectangular shape hung to their right. Both had some insignia he did not recognise on their shoulders, though they were not the same.

Stannis had encountered his share of female fighters, and unlike some of his contemporaries was not so stupid as to ignore them because of their gender, but he had never encountered a female battle commander, and he had no doubt by her posture that this woman, though probably subordinate to the man beside her, had commanded troops in combat. Such a burden was an unspoken brotherhood of which he was a member in long standing.

"Who the hell are you?" Stannis demanded without preamble. He appreciated neither surprises nor discourtesy, both of which had so suddenly appeared before him, slightly intrigued though he may have been. Melisandre had pulled away from Davos, who was standing in rigid hostility, and had moved back to Stannis' own side, regarding the visitors with unexplained awe, her gaze flickering occasionally to the flames, as though for reassurance, though from what, Stannis did not know.

The man snapped his heels together and went quickly rigid, his right arm snapping forward and pulling back as though by torsion, before the blade of his hand lighted above his right eye. The woman did the same, with the same practised familiarity of action, which spoke of repeated ritual, though one alien to anything Stannis had seen in Westeros, or even beyond.

"Colonel Jean-Marie Leclerc, Lord Baratheon," the man replied, though his accent and hesitation betrayed that Westerosi was not his native tongue; it was a peculiar combination of melodic and guttural.

"Major Ségolène DuPris, Lord Baratheon," the woman replied with equal force and self confidence. However, she felt compelled to add more than her identity. " Of the army of the Republic of France."

Melisandre remained silent, and her dark eyes revealed nothing of her thoughts, from whatever inferno they originated.

Davos was not so quiet. "I have never heard of France," he growled. "Or of any such Republic."

Leclerc turned, very slightly. "I would have been most surprised if you had."


	3. Chapter 3

**For those of you who are reading this, I am well aware that the consequences of this scenario if taken to its logical conclusion are ultimately the triumph of the Night King, as there would little to anything left of the population of Westeros after perhaps five years. It would make what happened to the Americas after Columbus look like the spread of a summer cold in a scout camp. So, for narrative purposes, I am not going to include the inevitable spread of our diseases to Westeros.**

Lady Shireen- no, _Princess,_ Shireen, she occasionally shyly reminded herself - put down the book on the various herbal remedies for sneezing fits she had been reading to the side of her bed, and sighed softly to herself.

When her father had first arrived back to Dragonstone after perhaps seven months in King's Landing, she had been overjoyed to see him and had ran from the gates of the black castle to the pier on which his ship had landed, to throw herself into his strong arms beneath broad, Baratheon shoulders. She could see the twitch of surprise in his dark, cold eyes as he had caught her, and the embrace that he had returned was at it's best tentative and weak, but it was the closest demonstration of affection she had expected. She knew, in her soul, of the fondness her father held for her, by the way in which he spoke to her, without the tint of disapproval and suspicion with which he addressed everyone else, save perhaps Ser Davos. She had also seen the slight upturn of his lips as he had gently put her down, though no one more distant would have recognised it for the closest to a smile to which her famously dour father could approach. She had seen it before in his face when he had looked at her, and she knew that her Lord Father's smile was reserved for her alone, a secret shared between the two of them.

But when he had returned two weeks before, after the whispers of the devastation of his fleet and the loss of half his army, he had not smiled at her, and had in fact barely acknowledged her beyond a brief nod. It was not the Greyscale, she knew. Her father had proved so many times in her short life that her disfigured face was not only something towards which he was indifferent, but that his indifference to it by now had become a form of unseeing. When he looked at his daughter, she knew, he saw only his daughter, not the disease that had cursed her to a life far below what she otherwise could have expected. Marriage to a lowly house, desperate for advancement enough to endure the shame of a deformed gooddaughter, or at worst the Silent Sisters. No, his reaction to her had been nothing to do with her presence, and all about the raging storm of regret fueled rager within him she could see from yards away as he had stalked from his burned ship to the castle gates.

 _Ours is the Fury._

Shireen loved her father, dearly, though she had never said the words, knowing that though the presence of the sentiment might be comforting, the words themselves would be embarrassing. She even tried to love her mother, knowing that though the absence of the sentiment might be welcomed, the lack of words would be hurtful. Her mother, she knew, was consumed by the regret to which she regularly, and morbidly, paid homage in the form of the stillborn babies she had preserved in those awful yellow jars, the inability to provide her husband with a male heir. Shireen, scarcely 12 years of of age, knew that when Selyse Baratheon regarded her daughter, she did not see a girl to which she had given birth but a reminder of those sons to which she had not. A weaker girl would have taken such disregard and ownerless blame to heart, and let it twist her. Shireen did not, for she knew her father loved her.

She shook herself from her contemplation. She would not sleep, she knew, though it was late enough that the moon was casting its white rays through her shuttered and storm battered window. She shifted from her bed, draped herself in a nightgown, and padded from her large, unguarded, chambers. It was not that her father thought her unworthy of protection; this was Dragonstone, the seat of what remained of House Baratheon.

 _Ours is the Fury._

Stannis stared absently into space, his right hand twirling the stem of an goblet containing wine the likes of which he had never tasted, his left hand beneath table, clenched so tightly that his short nails had drawn blood from his calloused palm. Davos sat beside him, regarding the newcomers with a mixture of incredulity and suspicion. In his travels from the Vale to Ibben and beyond, he had never heard of the likes of the pair who sat on the far side of the table, so at ease with their own safety while surrounded with the cream of Dragonstone and Stormland guards that it made him wish that he could grind teeth in the same manner as sometimes did his Lord. Melisandre stood back, aloof from either, in the shadows of the great hearth, into which Davos fervently hoped which she would soon throw herself.

Stannis spoke first his tone, as ever, a mixture of suspicion and cold calculation, a formula on which the duty-fueled reluctant ambition of his campaign had so far foundered. But the pair opposite offered different options.

'You say you are not from Westeros?' he growled softly in the faint, moon-augmented candlelight. ' I have met many not from Westeros; I have met the natives of the Free Cities, of Pentos, other parts of Essos. I was the Master of Ships; I received paid envoys from even the Dothraki. I have met those from Ibben, even Ghiscar, far to the East.' He leaned forward slightly. 'I have never met the likes of you.'

Leclerc could have sighed openly, but from what he remembered of his history lessons as a child, and some scarce reading since, in a medieval environment, absent a sponsor to vouch, even such a breath of exasperation would be tantamount to disrespect. _Barbarians,_ he thought idly to himself as he raised a metal goblet and sipped the local ale; he had always preferred beer to wine, being a native of Alsace, though it had done him no favours in the mess, where he had been gently mocked for being either a German or an Englishman, distinctions now irrelevant as the dead walked. Though not yet on Corsica. And it was his duty to the last island of the French Republic that governed his responses. If even a slight twitch of his shoulders could garner a favourable impression from this Lord, then he would twitch as though he was prone to fits.

'Yes, Lord Baratheon,' he replied softly, grateful though whatever cosmic coincidence that the grammatical rules of the local language were are least similar enough that he had, though intensive training, mastered it easily enough, though he he imagined his accent to be appalling. DuPris, quiet beside him, was even more proficient, though she had served in both Djibouti and Afghanistan, whereas he had never been deployed beyond mainland France. 'We are from very, very far from Westeros. And we have a proposal that I believe you would find beneficial.'

Davos squirmed awkwardly in his seat, glancing towards the guards, who stood, solemnly and attentively. Stannis' manner was blunt, to the point of rudeness, whereas his own, he knew, was an odd chemistry of plain speaking, tempered by the humility of low birth, whatever his current station.

'You say you have an offer,' he began bluntly. 'In my experience, that suggests a bargain, from which both parties benefit. Leaving aside what you could do for his Grace,' he nodded toward Stannis, who said nothing for the moment, 'I would ask you what you want.'

The Onion Night was surprised when the woman replied, not the man, though he was obviously her superior, in whatever rank structure to which they held. He to admit, as she spoke, that her accent was far less guttural than the grating speech of the man, Leclerc.

'We are in charge of a number of civilians,' she replied softly, though that was all about her which was soft. She was tall and broad, at least for a woman, with close cropped black hair, though for her size he thought her pretty enough. He had always been attracted to strong women, he knew himself. 'It is for them that we are here. We need land for settling them, for we have none back home.' Her eyes flickered with grief as she spoke, and Davos could see her swallow back emotion. He could also see the eyes of the man cloud over with the same grief and, for a moment in the bad light, he thought he saw the man's eyes tear.

'Our homeland is gone. It is infested with ... plague ... I suppose you might call it, though those of us who are left are immune from its effects,' she assured them quickly as she saw them recoil. DuPris was a far more educated woman than her superior, for all his seniority, and she knew that to people from a medieval mindset, even if it was so far from her own Europe, the word _plague_ was akin to setting off a nuke in conversation. Her mind strayed briefly. _Nukes._ 'We simply need land on which to settle. But I fear the numbers are greater than this island can hold.' She sat back, stroking her cheek with her left hand as she often did when she was thinking. She had graduated second in her class at _St. Cyr,_ the highest placing ever for a female officer, and her thoughts, though collected in a blinding instant when need be, threatened to move towards all points of the compass at once. 'Though we could boost the fertility of your land by probably a factor of ten.'

She saw the lack of understanding in their eyes, and she knew that it had little to do with linguistic mistakes, but rather a mistake of impression. 'We can increase your crop yield tenfold,' she explained further. 'Among limitless other benefits which would accrue from an alliance between us.'

Leclerc, though he knew his rank to be the only way in which he was superior to his subordinate, for whom he had more respect than he felt towards any other with whom he had served, up to and including flag rank, knew also that in this environment, he could not be seen to have a woman speak for him. Were this a NATO conference or European Battle-Group talks, he would have little hesitation and less ego, this setting was far more ... primitive. And time was of an essence, not to be wasted on even the five minutes of explanation as to why he was happy to have Ségolène speak for him, for all that she was seven years his junior.

'To the heart of the matter, Lord Baratheon,' he interrupted as the cold eyed aristocrat turned to him, 'we have seven hundred thousand people we need to resettle, and quickly.' He ignored the intake of breath from both men in front of him. 'We are down now to three quarter rations, and they will scarcely last a month before they have to be cut again. We will not allow men, women, the old and the young to starve. Our homeland is cut off from us, for all practical purposes.' He remembered the fertile fields of Provence and the meadows of Languedoc, the terraces of the Midi and the factory farms of the Ile de France, all swarmed with the dead. He could eradicate them, he knew, but not in the time he had before all the remaining cured refugees starved to death. It would take months to clear France, and even then he would have to erect fortresses on the Pyrenees, the Rhine and the Alps. The civilians would be long dead of starvation by that point. The portal on the _Charles de Gaulle_ offered something of equal risk, but greater reward.

Stannis could scarcely wrap his mind around the numbers of which they spoke, never mind the potential ramifications of taking on such an almost uncountable horde. They were speaking of another King's Landing, without the food supply, sanitation, or infrastructure. Dragonstone had a population of scarcely fifty thousand and, of those, he knew some starved each year. He had done his best to improve the situation upon his inheritance of the hated rock, even during the war, for since the siege of Storm's End, he knew what it was to be hungry, but swimming against the tide was not something towards which he was temperamentally suited.

'Seven hundred thousand?' he stated flatly, not even a question. 'That is not possible. Not anywhere I govern.'

Leclerc smiled, and drew his sidearm. The two men, or the silent woman standing by the fire, did not react, but then he knew of course that they knew nothing of what they now faced. Had he drawn a sword, they would have reacted but, if all he had was a sword, then they would not listen.

'Lord Baratheon,' he said carefully, his pistol by his side as he sat at one end of the table, ' as a courtesy, would you have a man place the decanter of wine at the sill of the window, please? This is an important demonstration of what I have to offer, and I would not have it that you were not involved. Please.' He gestured towards the crystal vessel.

Stannis stared at the man for a moment, then looked at one of his guards. With a flicker of his eyes, he indicated to the man do do as instructed. The guard moved and lifted the wine from the table to the window, the shutter of which was moving steadily against the harsh winds blowing in the from the sea. The Winter storms were thunderous, but even those of summer had little entertainment. The guard placed the crystal down, and was about to turn away, when Leclerc spoke again.

'Excuse me,' he said to the guard, who turned in surprise. He was a heavy set man, with a blonde beard, and had been in the service of the Baratheons all his life. He had even served at Storm's End, though as a messenger, being too young at the time to fight. 'Would you please remove your helmet and place it over the crystal?' After a glance to Stannis, who nodded very slightly, the guard removed his helm, which covered the decanter.

DuPris interrupted then. 'And your armour,' she asked the guard, who twitched at being asked by a woman to remove his plate. 'Do what she says,' Stannis ground out, at least curious as to what would happen, though Davos shifted nervously as the man removed his armour and stacked it awkwardly over the helm.

Leclerc took a deep breath, brought up the pistol in a right hand grip supported by his left in a smooth motion, glanced through the sites for a split second, and fired though the centre of the plate.

He regretted the spilled wine


	4. Chapter 4

Stannis erupted from his seat as it crashed to the ground behind him, the small thunder of the ... weapon ... contained.

Davos merely slid his back perhaps a metre, more in the instinct of self defence than deference.

Melisandre started back from the fire, moving farther towards the shadows cast by the dragon gargoyles.

There was a solid hole, not more than two centimetres in diameter, in the middle of what all three had considered to be solid steel plate armour, against which all but Valyrian Steel should have been proof. Above the small hole, enough to kill a man but not much more, was the smallest waft of smoke, as though the steel itself protested against such use. The red wine, Dornish for all that Stannis despised indulgence in his shock he realised the regret of such waste, leaked gently to the stone floor, the steady drip of liquid almost overwhelmed by the shuddering storm which battered against the shutters. But not quite. The steady drip of the wine against the stone, rhythmic as it was, approached sedation to the Lord of Dragonstone, as he struggled to incorporate what he had just seen, and heard.

One man, with a small club from distance, had done more damage in a brief second than could have been achieved by a hundred crossbows. Such power ... He glanced at Melisandre. Though more the toy of his wife than proper advisor of his, as yet, he had come to rely to a point on her counsel, but she remained silent, as she had since Leclerc and DuPris had entered the chamber, as though their presence itself defied her prophetic dreams. Perhaps it did, and of that, he would make use. His mind was working in a dozen different streams, imagining the power of this weapon put to use in the hands of his remaining armies, perhaps fifteen thousand men, sullen and wet in their camps on the island. This would cheer them, he knew. He knew what made men fight, and what made them proud and eager to do so. He had known at Storm's End, when they had been reduced to eating rats. He had known at Pyk, when he had shattered the Ironborn and their proud fleet. He had even known at the Blackwater, for all the tricks of the Imp and his cursed Wildfire. Put weapons like these in the hands of his soldiers, and they would be proud again.

'You have more of these things?' he asked quietly. 'What are they called?'

Leclerc smiled to himself. He knew he had his man. It was not so different from the efforts of his ancestors when they had put muskets in the hands of the American tribes and pointed them in the direction of the English colonies, though he hoped he would not have to resort to smallpox blankets as did they. Power was a universal drug, and it seemed that its addictive qualities moved across space as easy as time. He could see the desire in the eyes of this Lord Baratheon. He had chosen his man well.

'Some call them guns,' he replied. 'But soldiers don't. We call them pistols. Guns are somewhat ... bigger.' He smiled faintly as he imagined what this man would do when he demonstrated the power of artillery, never mind tanks and bombers. _Not bombers,_ he thought to himself in correction. They simply wouldn't fit through the space available. Those few of his colleagues left from the AdA and Luftwaffe would be disappointed. He shrugged mentally to himself. They would still have their drones, he thought. 'These are the least of what we offer.' He touched DuPris' shoulder, and she glanced at him. 'Show them.'

She remained quiet for a moment, then reached into one of the pouches on her utility belt. She rose. The guards stiffened, but with a brief gesture from Stannis, they relaxed. They, too, had seen what these strangers could do and, though they would give their lives if need be, they would not have them so cheaply purchased. Though none of them could put words to what they had just seen, they did not wish to be on the wrong end of whatever powers these strangers wielded. DuPris moved to Stannis' side of the table, though Davos tensed at her proximity.

Davos saw her with a small device in her hand, perhaps the size of the head of a spatula. He grimaced internally. He was a knight, now, under the orders of Stannis himself. _The Onion Knight,_ he thought ruefully. If any of his new station should know the size of a cooking implement, it was him.

The device was black, and somewhat reflective, the red from the dying flames of the hearth casting myriad colours against its surface. She held it in her right hand - it appeared to be made of glass, though how she could have something made as small as that from glass, Davos did not know. He almost kicked himself at the thought. These people had weapons that could penetrate two solid layers of steel in one shot. Upon what other wonders could they draw?

'This will startle you,' the woman informed them both bluntly. 'I need you to look at this carefully. You will find it frightening, I warn you, and you will not understand how it is possible. But you have to look, still.' Davos glanced at her; her mastery of their language was frightening in its confidence.

Stannis growled amid the silence. 'I do not get easily frightened, woman,' he told her scornfully, less because of her gender than her perceived condescension. 'Get on with whatever you are doing.'

DuPris shot a quick grin at Leclerc. She was looking forward to the reaction of these men to a tablet. She passed her thumb over the activation button, the biometrics recognising her thumbprint, and the tablet grabbed Davos' arm as he recoiled, though Stannis stood rigidly still, controlling himself with a fierce effort of will, which was not to say that his mind was not racing. DuPris tapped through the menu to the video menu, and activated the training video for the French Army. And upped the volume. He grip on Davos had to become more firm as he instinctively pulled back from what to him appeared to be magic, proving once and for all Asimov's theories of technology and magic, but she would not have to have grabbed Stannis. After a few seconds of ignoring the language which he could not understand - _he soon would_ , she thought to herself, because there was not way these people would not be speaking French within a century - he became engrossed with what he saw, to the point of being able to ignore how he was seeing it. Melisandre approached from behind both men, looking through the gap between them.

The video was short enough, but long enough to demonstrate everything that the French could bring to bear upon the enemies of the Baratheon Lord, the one true heir to the Iron Throne. It demonstrated French soldiers with _Famas_ assault rifles demolishing a target dummy, it showed artillery leveling a grove of trees from kilometres away with fire spewing from the loaded tubes, it showed tanks moving swiftly across the plain of northern France, spitting machine gunfire and 140mm rounds which, had they been shown to Zhukov or Timoshenko 70 years before would have led to soiled trousers and intoxication. It even showed the AdA fighters and ground attack aircraft but those, she knew, were a step too far. The ... gate ... or whatever it was called which now occupied what had been the reactor chamber of the _Foch_ was scarcely four metres by diameter, and was thus not large enough to allow a modern fighter to transit. Though she supposed they could be disassembled ... _no,_ she thought to herself. There were no facilities on this side to put them back together, or time to fabricate such, even had the raw materials been fully available. They were, in any case, facing swords, shields and _fucking_ horses. 12,000 French and German soldiers, with assault rifles, artillery and tanks, the full potential of which the Lords were no witnessing, should be enough. Even if grossly outnumbered, the panic their weapons would induce would do their work for them.

The only thing now, she knew, was the discussion of terms. And after that, the logistical nightmare of the transportation and settlement of more than 700,000 civilians to an area they would first have to pacify. She shuddered at the implications of such necessity, but that was not her responsibility. Leclerc was Operations, always had been. She was a combat soldier and, she knew, it would be she who was placed in charge of their advance forces when they had to clear the thinly populated mainland. Actually, she thought idly, the first priority should be answering the question of how to transport tens of thousands of gallons of diesel on wooden sailing ships.

It would not be worse than Afghanistan. What was it they called this place? _Westeros._ Perhaps they should have a new medal minted for service here.

Stannis was the first to speak as they video ended, though Davos' eyes were fixed on the tablet, perhaps expecting it to reach out and seize his soul, for which he was worried as the Red Priestess stood behind him her proximity, to him, being even more unnerving than what he had been shown moments before. He felt the woman relax her strong grip on his arm as she put the device away.

'You can summon these things?' he demanded. 'These ... fire throwers?' His mind was awash with the potential of their deployment. The Lannisters and Tyrells would shit themselves, he knew, but he also knew that the people now in front of him had no loyalty to House Baratheon. 'And why would you give them to me and not my enemies?'

Leclerc smiled ruefully as DuPris took her place on the seat beside him as all seated themselves. The distance across the odd table engraved with maps did not seem so wide as it had moments before. The world itself seemed smaller. 'To the first, we can bring most of it. Not the machines you saw in flight, they are too large. To the second, the portal though which we have traveled is located on this island, to which you seem to lay claim. In order to resettle our people, we need as few local arguments as possible. You are the Lord here. Had our portal landed elsewhere ...' He gave a Gallic shrug, and wished at that moment that he had a cigarette, but he had already shown these men too many modern wonders, if tobacco qualified as such. He would not be importing it, he knew. Humanity had all but destroyed earth, even without the Death Plague, as it was being called. They could avoid the mistakes of the past, here, though he knew that the immediate needs of the civilians on Corsica, huddled and hungry, would devastate any local environment.

Stannis was about to reply when the door creaked open. He swung, and was about to reach for his sword, so rattled was he with what he had seen, but removed his hand when he saw who it was.

'Father?' Shireen spoke softly as she entered the room without really knowing why she was doing so.

Leclerc turned, as did DuPris. The latter's eyes widened slightly when she saw the young girl, whose age she judged to about thirteen, very pretty, though the left side of her face was marred by some odd deformity. DuPris, whose undergraduate degree, medicine, she had taken before following her father into the army, rose and went to the child, who showed no fear at her approach.

'What a beautiful girl,' she breathed. Shireen blushed, on right side. She was unused to such compliments. DuPris gently touched her left cheek. 'What is this?' she asked Stannis.

'Greyscale,' he replied. 'You do not have it where very you are from?'

DuPris momentarily forgot that neither she not Leclerc had actually said where they were from, as she ran her finger over the girl's cheek. 'We are not from this world,' she replied absently, ignoring the intake of breath from Stannis and Davos, though not from Melisandre. 'We have nothing like this, it seems to be a form of skin tumour, though likely benign in its current state.' She thought to herself for a moment. For all their desperation, they did have the resources of Europe from which to draw, and the profile of the refugees was one of unusually high education. 'What is your name, little one?' she asked gently.

'Shireen, of House Baratheon, daughter of his Grace, King Stannis Baratheon,' she replied proudly.

'Would you like this cured, Shireen Baratheon?' DuPris asked quietly.


	5. Chapter 5

Shireen held tightly to her father's hand, which she had taken without the usual reluctance he displayed whenever she attempted any form of physical affection, and stepped through the grey opening, which glittered slightly at its edge, like a guttering candle that shone grey over flame. She did not know what to expect as she did so, clutching her shawl around her neck, though she did not use it to hide her cheek as she often did - these people, the French, genuinely did not seem to care about the deformity which had so governed her life to this point.

'Do not worry, my dear,' the female soldier told her, leaning down. 'As I told you, you will find that my people have a great deal more about which to worry than a scar on your cheek.'

That the woman could have so easily dismissed something which was so much greater than a mere _scar_ either meant that her people were themselves as unfeeling as some (but not she herself, who knew better) considered her father to be, or she was actually telling the truth, and that they had no care for deformity. She could not allow herself to believe such a sweet fantasy.

The trip through was instantaneous - for all that these people had said that they were from a different world, there was no sense of travel time, and she was glad as they stepped through of the presence of Davos. Melisandre, for whom Shireen had little affection and in whom she had even less trust for all of her mother's devotion, had not volunteered to come. In fact, she had been remarkably quiet since the arrival of the foreigners. Shireen did not mind - she found the woman's pleasant voice to grating, silk over rotten steel.

The room into which she and her father had stepped was large, and it seemed to made of grey metal, but Shireen was sure that she had heard one of them saying that it was a ship to which they were travelling, so she considered that she has misheard. It was perhaps twenty feet wide with a high ceiling, though there were people on odd looking ladders at the roof wearing full faced black masks holding devices which emitted blinding blue light which hurt her eyes. There was a chill breeze from an opening at the other side which seemed to lead to another room bathed in daylight.

There were two files of men and women, wearing navy, with peaked white caps and shiny black shoes, their chests strung with gold braids. At a barked command in a foreign language from Leclerc, they stood ramrod straight and crisply raised their right arms in perfect unison to their heads, their forefingers meeting the blue tips of their caps. It was obviously a salute, if some sort, Shireen understood quickly, but not one of the likes of which she had ever seen.

To her brief consternation, her father released her hand and bowed stiffly, obviously reaching the same conclusion. At another order, the men and women relaxed, though still stood ready. They had the same peculiar clubs on their belts of which she had heard her father and Davos whisper urgently. Her father took her hand again, and squeezed lightly, once.

They walked through a mass of milling people – mostly men, but a few women, here and there – to the opening at the far end of the room. To the left were metal stairs and, finally, blessed sunlight, and warmth. She was of Dragonstone, and hardy because of it, but she welcomed the warmth of summer. She and her father followed Leclerc, as DuPris knelt beside her, hand on shoulder, gently.

'Do not worry, Shireen,' she whispered. 'You will find that my people have a great more about which to be concerned than a slight scar on the cheek of a young girl.'

The young girl smiled, uncertainly. She had never characterised her deformity as a 'slight scar,' but despite the woman's harsh accent, she felt reassured by her apparent honesty as they began to mount the steps. She could see her father's expression harden - if such were possible - as they approached the top of the steps and the warmth of daylight, but he pulled her with him as they reached the pinnacle. And the summer sunlight, and the warm breeze of the island.

For it had to be an island, though she had been told it was a ship.

It was massive, a huge flat platform in the sea on which people were scurrying to and fro, though she and her father occasionally received odds looks. There was no one wearing armour, like her father, and none wearing a sword, though some carried the clubs worn by Leclerc and DuPris. The metal island was swept by a gentle breeze, and there were constructs of some kind here and there, grey metal with curved glass tops, with outstretching horizontal arms, curved slightly to the ground with darker protrusions on each side, like pointed cylinders, though she could not imagine what might be their purpose.

She could hear her father take a deep breath. 'What is this?' he demanded harshly of Leclerc, who looked at him with a glint of amusement, which she considered was hardly the best attitude to take with the famously harsh second son of Steffon Baratheon.

'You are aboard the _Marine Nationale_ aircraft carrier _Charles de Gaulle,_ Lord Baratheon,' he replied, with a tinge of pride. 'The pride of the French Navy, named for one of our previous leaders, who saw us through a dark time in our history. Hopefully, the ship named for him will do the same.'

DuPris almost snarled at him in their biting language, from no provocation which Shireen could understand, though she knew she knew nothing of their internal squabbles. She had been raised to be the heir of Dragonstone and, as it stood now, the heir to the Iron Throne - she knew her father would not tolerate the precedent of male only succession that had emerged from the ashes of the Dance of Dragons - and she knew that these people purported to be allies, they had admitted to not being freinds, and that any internal disagreement between them could be fruit either ripe to pick or rotten to eat.

Of course, she could not know that Leclerc and DuPris had been on opposite sides of a debate years before about the nature and cause of the French defeat in 1941.

'This cannot be a ship,' her father stated flatly. 'It is made of iron, and iron cannot float, in this world or any other.' His hand tightened slightly around hers as the breeze blew her hair around her head.

Leclerc smiled slightly. 'It can, if it is shaped properly and sealed adequately, though I do not pretend to understand the engineering of it. We had wooden ships for most of out history, also, I think it has only been in the last hundred and fifty years or so that we sailed iron and steel. Please.' He indicated with his arm and DuPris shepherded them towards an object that, to Shireen, vaguely resembled a large - very large - insect.

It was shaped vaguely like a rectangular box, though with edged bulges at each side, standing on its narrow edge, though standing off the ground slightly, with small wheels supporting its base. It was a dull grey, though its front was darker and sloped backwards, vaguely reflective which, coupled with what appeared to be windows on each side, made her think that it might be glass. One side was open, though she could not see the shadowy chamber within, the light contrast was too great. It appeared to have a tail, though one which emerged from the top rather than the bottom, which ended with four still spokes. Similar spokes, though much longer, were mounted on its roof, and there were various protuberances from its body which she could not identify. It was the size of a small house, and she shivered, knowing that she and her father were the first from their world to see whatever was this threatening object.

She mounted small steps into the small chamber within, her heart beating heavily as her father followed her as they sat. Leclerc and DuPris sat facing in front of them, and the door was slid closed from the outside by a man wearing dark, reflective circles over his eyes, and an odd helmet.

DuPris handed her what appeared to be a set of circles about the size of her father's hand, and Leclerc did the same to him. They were attached to each other by a rigid semi-circular band. She looked at them in confusion. The woman smiled kindly, and placed a similar device on her head, with the circles covering her ears. 'You will need them, my dear,' she told her. 'This is going to be loud.'

She could feel her father's reluctance as Leclerc told him the same thing, but he did as advised, and she did the same. Suddenly, she could not hear anything but, as Leclerc tapped the wall behind him that had a rectangular window at the top, what she could hear was the least of her concerns.

The entire chamber began to shake and, even through the devices on her ears, she could feel a dreadful roaring that seemed to go on forever. The chamber seemed to move, then, though in a strange manner, and her stomach seemed to wish to descent into her groin, though it was slight discomfort, absent any pain, and stabilised after a moment. The noise seemed to stabilise, becoming a quiet hum. DuPriis and Leclerc removed their headpieces, and she and her father quickly did the same.

The noise was not deafening, but it was loud enough to be uncomfortable. Shireen had spent much of her life in the shadows, because of the looks she received from those who were not familiar with her, and as result had developed a very good sense of hearing, to determine the meaning of the whispers that seemed to follow her. Most were cruel, the odd few sympathetic. The talent did not help her now, and she began to develop a headache.

Leclerc tapped her father on the shoulder, while DuPris extended her hand to Shireen, who took it carefully as they rose from their seats to what she was sure now was a window. She looked through it, and nearly fainted, might have done had not DuPris been holding her shoulder.

They were at least four hundred feet from the sea, which moved silently at such distance.

 _They were flying._

'Father!' she squealed. 'We are in a dragon!'

'It's more or less what we thought,' Leclerc voiced his opinion to DuPris in French through thier headsets as the OtherWorld Lord and his daughter stood at the window. He could only imagine what they thought that moment, or what he would have thought were in he in their position. 'We need to get the lay of the land, not too dissimilar to what happened in the Americas five hundred years ago. At least in principle. We obviously have Stannis' support, or will soon. But we need to know more of the mainland. Out drones don't have the range to scout much beyond the shore. It looks promising, what survey we made of it.'

He heard her grunt. 'We have no idea of what's beyond the island,' she replied tersely. 'But I know that we cannot continue indefinitely as we are. Out foraging parties are at their limits - Corsica will run out of power within six months, we have no access to the main grid, which is gone to shit in any case. We can take non-perishable food from the mainland for maybe a year, after that we are starving. We need access to the seed vault in Norway, though, if we colonise the mainland of the main continent. After that, within two years, we can produce more food than we will ever need. With their labour and our knowledge, what is the limit? If we bring over our animal breeds, especially cattle, they will have more food in ten years than they know what to do with.''

He nodded agreement. 'Indeed,' he agreed. 'The problem will be that, until we can build the infrastructure, we will have to rely on ground troops absent mechanised support. Can you imagine transporting a LeClerc tank on a wooden ship, or even an APC?'

She shuddered agreement as they hit a burst of wind as they descended to the main platform on the Corsican capital, Ajacchio. They would have their meeting in the birthplace of Napoleon - that had been decided long ago. She wondered if Stannis could even understand what that meant, to stand where such a man had been born.

Leclerc agreed, though he had less affection for Bonaparte, for all his martial glory. Leclerc's family could trace their roots to the Capetians, his family legacy destroyed by the Revolution. For all he admired the first Emperor's martial achievements, he has little affection for his ideology or his legacy.

'Worse than that,' she told him, 'out troops won't simply stand in volleys and kill their soldiers. Nor would I, that isn't war, it's slaughter. We need tanks and APCs to intimidate the locals into submission. Choppers and fighters.'

He nodded, glumly. 'The gateway is too narrow,' he agreed. 'APCs, maybe, but how to get them to the mainland and how to supply them with fuel?' He cursed, he was Provencal, and they had their own curses, and then laughed. 'We are a 21st century state, invading what is to all degrees a medieval world. One would think it would be easy.'


	6. Chapter 6

Stannis stepped off the helicopter with shaking legs, almost unable to process that he had actually _flown_ to the island from that one, massive, ship. His expression, though, remained controlled as he helped his daughter down the step. Her eyes were bright with wonder and excitement but, he knew, those were children's indulgences. He was a man, and could not afford such things

A woman approached them, small and fit looking, wearing the same grey and black worn by Leclerc and DuPris, though rather than the blue, white and red patch which they sported on their arms, she wore a patch with black, red and gold. She spoke briefly to DuPris, who ruffled Shireen's hair and spoke quietly to Stannis. 'This is doctor Weber,' she informed him. 'She is a … healer, I suppose you would call her … attached to the German Army.' At this slightly confused look, she clarified, kicking herself that this man has never heard of Germany. 'A different nation, with whom we have been allied for seventy years. Part of their army escaped with ours. She wishes to look at your daughter's illness, to see if it can be cured. She doesn't speak your language, though, so with your permission I will ask one of our more junior officers, who does, to accompany her.' She gestured to a fresh faced boy of maybe 19, who stepped forward, saluted crisply, but spoke haltingly in the accent Stannis considered to be grating and harsh.

'Apologies,' he said softly. 'I speak … little?... your , I think, I hope, for young one.'

Stannis grunted, and turned to his daughter, who returned his gaze with complete trust. 'Go with this woman and this lad,' he ordered her. 'They want to examine the Greyscale.' He leaned down as though to embrace her, but whispered instead into her ear. 'You are Princess Shireen of House Baratheon, and you are my daughter. You will someday be Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. Let this be your first lesson. Keep your eyes and ears open. We cannot trust these people yet.'

She nodded gravely, honoured that her father would so trust her. The young man took her hand gently, and nodded to the healer. They turned and walked across the stone platform.

'She will be fine, my Lord,' Leclerc told him as he watched them. ' We do not hurt children. Nor do we take hostages; it is not our way. ' Another soldier handed him a long leather coat. Stannis looked at, not understanding; it was far from cold, though a stiff breeze blew across the open platform.

'Please, put this on,' Leclerc asked of him. 'My people have not worn armour for hundreds of years, and we have not informed the population about your world. Not yet. Your attire would attract attention we would sooner avoid, for the moment, if you are seen.'

Stannis had seen enough wonders in one day to last him a lifetime, what was traveling in a mottled green carriage that made a loud noise and apparently did not require horses? The seats were soft as he sat in the rear beside Leclerc as DuPris spoke softly with the man on the left who seemed to be controlling this vehicle. Stannis resolved to stop wondering about any of this until he had seen everything and there was nothing else to shock him. At that point, he would indulge himself with a glass of wine. Or several, he suspected.

The city through which they travelled was large, possibly as large as Highgarden, though not so large as King's Landing. People thronged the streets, with most looking agitated and afraid. One thing he noticed after a while, and which should have struck him immediately, was the sheer size of most of them. Stannis himself was a big man, an inch over six feet, which made him tower over most people in Westeros. But there were few here over which he could do so, most were close to the same size, and many were taller. They also wore a variety of clothing, all of which looked well tailored, though it alien to him.

'Where are the smallfolk?' he asked, slightly bewildered. 'There are thousands of people here, they can't all be Lords.'

Leclerc chuckled. 'We don't have that kind of system anymore, my Lord,' he replied, still laughing quietly to himself. 'Not for two centuries or more. The only distinction we have is one of wealth, and anyone can become rich. Most of the people we saved from the plague were of higher levels of wealth than the average, though. No one with any kind of criminal record was given the cure, and we prioritised soldiers and other useful occupations. It was necessary as the plague began to spread to the south of our country to be selective about who received the cure, especially as decided to retreat to this island.'

Stannis had an idea of what a criminal record was, though how these people could keep track of those who engaged in criminality was a mystery to him, as was the idea of a society structured in such a manner as had no distinction other than wealth. Did birth count for nothing here, he wondered.

'Did you not try to save your king?' he asked harshly. Such was the duty of a soldier.

Leclerc smiled faintly. 'We have no kings, Lord Baratheon,' he informed the Westerosi. 'We have not had for a hundred and fifty years and more. Our Revolution to overthrow our last absolute king consumed a continent in 20 years of blood and fire. France will never have a king again, we are a Republic and we will remain a Republic.'

Stannis frowned as he held tight to a handle on the door made of an oddly soft material which he could not identify, though that was a minor mystery compared to the others of which he was trying desperately at that moment not to think. He knew of the Republics in Essos, and had little respect for them; collectives of self important, grubby merchants who held their city states in positions of continual stasis, with little regard to anything beyond their own narrow, selfish interests. He knew well the limits of government by nobility, and was not blind to its faults, but for every Lord like Tywin Lannister, who cared nothing for anyone not named for his family, there were Lords like he and Eddard Stark, who tried to improve the lives of those dependent on them, if sometimes in only small ways.

'Who has control of this Republic?' he asked curiously. Though he understood the importance of wealth to a realm, he had little time for merchants, who seemed to understand the importance of nothing else.

Leclerc smiled. 'Everyone over the age of eighteen in the country has a vote, men and women both, though this has only been the case for about 70 years,' he explained as Stannis struggled to understand how illiterate smallfolk could be given any voice in the doings of government, or how it could even be communicated to them?

Leclerc saw his look as they pulled onto Rue Saint-Charles, which had been closed off from the public for the purpose, though the population had a great deal more on their minds at the moment than commemorative tourism. 'Nearly everyone in our society is literate, Lord Stannis, and we have ways of keeping them informed of matters of import.'

Before Stannis could even begin to comprehend the ramifications of such an _alien_ concept as such distribution, even abrogation of power by those who must once have held it in a similar manner to Westeros, the vehicle slowed and came to a gentle stop, though Stannis' heart was still beating rapidly.

'Maison Bonaparte, my Lord,' DuPris told him as she opened the door from outside. Various other people, also soldiers, stood around the vehicle and the residence, their eyes covered with some form of black band which perched on their noses and wrapped straight to their ears. He squinted up at the house as he remembered to take the map he had brought with him from the seat of the vehicle.

The building was tall, three levels high above the ground, with green shutters on the glass windows, but unlike nearly everything else he had seen so far, it was not massively unlike a well appointed townhouse in any Westerosi city. The soldiers, carrying long clubs strapped to their shoulders which he assumed were larger variants of what he had seen, followed him with their invisible gazes as he followed DuPris though the large door.

Through a hallway as ornate as anything contained within the Red Keep, they entered a room which was decorated mostly in gold, with a large wooden table in the centre. There were two men and a woman standing on the far side, Stannis saw as he doffed the heavy cost that was making him perspire under his armour. He felt better dressed in his customary plain clothing and unadorned armour.

There was a picture above the cold hearth, of a man with full features, wearing a blue coat, looking down serenely.

'King Stannis Baratheon' Leclerc introduced him. 'May I introduce _Oberstleutnant_ Muller of the _Bundeswehr,_ the national army of the Federal Republic of Germany,' he gestured to one of the men dressed in this world's version of army uniform, but with the same red, black and gold patch as he has seen earlier

'Minister Kosciusko-Morizet,' he gestured to the woman, who had untidy blonde hair and a narrow face, with intelligent, calculating eyes. 'She is the most senior member of our government to survive.' In his own mind, at least, Stannis had a higher regard for women than many men of his station and generation, but he was beginning to become uncomfortable.

'Lastly, Captain Garcia, of the _Corps de l'armement,_ ourengineering arm,' he pointed to a large man with a barrel chest, wearing uniform but with Leclerc's colours, and wearing a similar band his eyes as the soldiers outside, though thesewere transparent. He looked to be in his late 30s, and extremely tough, though he carried no weapons.

'Please, Lord Baratheon, sit,' DuPris asked him, which he did,adjusting his sword as he did so. He did miss the look ifdistaste on the face of the blonde woman as she looked at it.

'I will translate from your language to ours,' DuPris informed him. 'Only a few of our people speak it. Which is another thing we have to address. How many orphans under the age of 10 can you give us from your island?' She saw the surprised expression on his face, and then of course realised she had to explain. 'Children learn languages much more quickly than adults, and we will need as many translators as we can find. We have several orphans, also, we will send them through to learn your language.' He nodded thoughtfully. He gave no thought to the idea of hostages, as he had not when deciding to come here alone with Shireen. These people either had powerful magic or powerful weapons, and to bring others with him was to invite tragedy, disaster or discourtesy. No soldiers he brought with him, or even Davos, would have been able to stand up against these French, or their … guns. And, though he cared in his own, aloof, way, about his people, the lives of a few orphans whose lives were miserable anyway were of little concern to him.

The blonde woman whose name he could not pronounce spoke rapidly in their unpleasant language. DuPris translated. 'She wants to know what ideas you might have to start with about where you think it would be best for our people to settle, after our army clears to way and fortifies the area.'

Stannis, were he a different man, would have smiled. Instead, he grunted, unfurled the map, and laid it on the table. The others drew in. He stabbed his finger at the Crownlands, below King's Landing. 'The Crownlands are nearest, but they support the capitol. Take them, it starves, and I do not wish to sit on a Throne over corpses or starving waifs. If your arms are as good as you say, we take a beach head, then march west.'

'To the Reach. And Highgarden.'


	7. Chapter 7

Davos stood at the hearth. He had been paying for hours, though he had slept a little, and eaten sparsely. He had refused to share a meal with Lady Melisandre, who had not offered, having barely said a word since the foreigners has arrived, which he could only regard as a positive. She had spent a great deal of her time starting into the flames, as though seeking revelation from her God, would he provide it. The blank look in her eyes under sometimes furrowed brows indicated to him that she was yet to receive it.

Were it not for the guards who stood in silent vigilance, he would have gladly fed her to the manifestation of her Lord.

He was tapping his hands on the cold stone of the hearth as the flames crackled, the sporadic snaps the only noises relieving the silence of the chamber, when one of Cresson's lads opened the door and approached diffidently.

'My Lord, one of the foreigners requests an audience with you,' he whispered. Davos turned, and saw one of them, one whom he had not seen before, wearing the same grey uniform, standing at the door. He had something in his hand, though it did not appear to one of the clubs they had called _guns._ Davos nodded to him, and he approached with the clipped confidence demonstrated only by soldiers.

'Sir,' the man spoke hesitantly. He was young, clean shave and fit. 'Your tongue, my tongue, not so good.' He smiled slightly. 'Word.' He lifted his hand and showed Davos what he held. It was black, with a green square at its top, and a small stick emerging from above that square. It was perhaps 10 inches long, three inches wide. Davos looked at it in confusion.

The man sighed. He depressed his finger against the side of device, the green square lit up slightly, and he placed the device to his mouth, speaking quickly in his own language. It crackled slightly.

Davos jumped as words in the language of the foreigners emerged from it. He could understand none of it, but it was undeniable that the object spoke. Davos had seen a great deal of the world, and seen things he could not explain and could not have been explained to him. This was far and away the most inexplicable thing he had ever seen, in Westeros, Essos, or beyond. He doubted that there was anything like this devilment even in the ruins of Valyria, from which no man ever returned.

He jumped away from the device as it spoke again, backing away quickly before he heard something that shocked him to his core.

 _'Davos?'_

The voice was more unclear than if Stannis had been standing beside him, but his King's voice it most certainly was. He moved forward cautiously as the young men held out the device, and spoke again quietly. 'Word,' he said again, pointing to his mouth, to the device, to Davos' mouth, and then to the device again, and repeated himself. 'Word.'

 _Speak,_ Davos realised. _He is telling me to speak._

'Your Grace?' he spoke into the device uncertainly.

The device crackled again. _'Davos, it's me, your King. Do you still have your knuckles around your neck?'_

Davos gripped the small pouch around his neck, and breathed in relief. He had no idea what it was the soldier held, how Stannis was speaking through it, where he was or even how he was, but that it was his King, he has no doubt. Few others knew the story, and certainly the foreigners could not know.

He would learn about modern surveillance later, and realise how easily at that moment he could have been duped but, at that moment, he was fortunate.

'I do, your Grace,' he spoke into the device.

 _'In which case, I hope they still bring you luck,'_ Stannis' voice came through with that odd crackling. _'Because I need you here. These people have questions to which I do not have answers. Follow the lad in front of you.'_

'Your Grace,' Davos nodded, then berated himself. He assumed Stannis could not see him.

 _'And, Davos, prepare yourself, for the trip will not be easy.'_

Davos entered the house on shaking legs, his mind reeling from what he had seen. He scarcely knew how to process all of it before he was escorted into a room where he saw Stannis sitting at ornate table, with Leclerc standing behind two soldiers and a woman in odd clothing, wearing a blouse of some description that revealed more of her cleavage than he would have considered decent, though not enough to suggest that she was courtesan. DuPris was sitting beside Stannis, and appeared frustrated.

'Sit down, Davos,' Stannis ordered him, and it occurred to him that his King must have truly himself been shaken when he forgot himself to the point of neglecting titles. 'We will speak later of what we both have seen, and with Shireen when she returns, she is with their healers. These people, the French, they need answers to questions on subjects of which I have no knowledge, but you might.'

Leclerc moved around the table and poured a glass of what smelled like wine for Davos. The soldier grinned. 'You look like you need it, and no one will think less of you that your hands are shaking, ours probably would be too in your position.

Davos ignored Stannis' brief glance of disapproval as he emptied his glass with hands that were indeed shaking. Leclerc had been; it was not the best wine he had ever tasted, but it settled his nerves a little. He noticed that Leclerc had left the bottle near enough that he could pour now himself, and was sorely tempted, but know that for this, he needed a clear head.

DuPris made brief introductions, which mostly went over Davos' head, as his heart was still thumping. _So little of this should be possible, but it so real I can smell the difference._

The bigger man of the two on the other side of the table spoke, and Leclerc translated. He pointed to the map. 'I think you call this the Roseroad,' Leclerc stated. 'It runs from south of your capitol to this city, Highgarden, a distance of maybe 350 miles. What's its condition?' he asked bluntly.

Davos looked at the map, and realised what Stannis was planning; he would need to take King's Landing, if nothing else to secure his rear, but he was aiming for the Reach to house the people from here. It was the most fertile of the Seven Kingdoms, and could easily feed the 700,000 of these foreigners. Of course, the Tyrell's would first have to accept Stannis' sovereignty – as would the North – and Davos has no doubt that, for all he would never show it, Stannis would enjoy every moment of ramming that recognition down Mace Tyrell's fat throat.

He cleared his throat. 'It is probably the best road in Westeros,' he confirmed. 'The Reach keeps it maintained. Solidly cobbled and bound with cement, it is wide enough to take four wagons at a time. It is also probably the busiest, the Reach exports a great deal of food.'

The foreigners babbled amongst themselves after Leclerc translated. DuPris spoke quietly to him. 'Our vehicles are very heavy, many tonnes in weight. There was a question over whether or not your roads could take them, but I see no reason they should not.' _Wheeled vehicles, anyway,_ she thought. _Tanks would rip it to shreds, if we can ever get them over._

The larger men with the odd metal and glass over his eyes looked at both Stannis and Davos, and asked another question; the other two leaned forward.

'Captain Garcia wants to know how many transport ships you have available, and what are their carrying capacity,' DuPris translated.

Stannis grunted. 'Now you see why I needed you,' he growled. Stannis was a very good commander, on land and on sea, as proven by his crushing victory over the Ironborn during the Greyjoy rebellion, but his knowledge of the minutiae of ship handling and handling was negligible.

Davos thought out loud as he mulled over the question. 'Our War Fleet was hit badly by the Blackwater, but the troop transports were barely affected – they stayed at the rear, obviously,' he said softly, trying to forget the pain of his son's death, though he knew he never would. 'We have thirty three transports, repurposed trading ships, really. Depending on the ship, they could carry anywhere between 40 and 90 tonnes. But escorts are thin, many of those that managed to make the journey back to Dragonstone are either damaged or crewed by men who have little experience of the sea.'

'How long from Dragonstone to the mainland, to somewhere on the coast that is fairly open and lightly populated? the other woman asked as Leclerc translated her question.

Davos turned to Stannis, who returned his look questioningly. 'Above Massey's Hook, is probably the best, without taking Blackwater Rush, would you agree, you Grace?'

Stannis thought for a moment, then nodded. The area of which he spoke was not far from the Roseroad, was bordered to the south by the Kingswood, and was sparsely populated, only a few villages relieving the dreary, heavily wooded landscape. It was perfect for a staging area if one had no direct point of assault, but for a direct attack on King's Landing, it was inappropriate. The only way to the city from Massey's Hook was straight through the Rush, and into the open killing ground beneath the strongest southern wall. However, they had promised him that they did not need to besiege the city; he did not really believe them, yet, but they said they could take it in a day, though also that they said that they did not have the numbers to garrison a city that large, that their soldiers should be, and would be, put to better use.

Davos turned to the others. 'It's a fourteen hour journey, with good winds and a good tides from Dragonstone, give or take.'

Leclerc babbled at the others, then turned. 'So you can deliver maybe 2000 tonnes if all your ships were full and sailed at once?' he asked, frowning as he thought to himself at the implications, which were better than he had hoped. One fully loaded convoy of ships would be enough for roughly 16 round trips to the destination, if they could figure out a way to get trucks onto the mainland. That didn't apply to combat operations but, realistically, a few snipers on the top of each truck, maybe a few with RPGs or even machine guns, if necessary, would be able to fend off anything other than a massed attack, which he viewed as unlikely. Especially if they could have a few tanks, though that would be problematic, at best. The Leclerc tank weighed fifty six tons, but it was so concentrated in such a small place the wooden ships would need massive structural reinforcement. _Maybe we could ship some of our barges over and mount outboards …_

'Lord Baratheon,' DuPris interjected. ' May we speak amongst ourselves in our language for a moment? There will be no treachery, I give you my word as a soldier.' Stannis nodded stiffly.

She turned to the others, leaning on the table and speaking as rapidly as the thoughts which entered her mind. 'We can take these people whenever we wish, but we must conserve resources,' she said to them all. 'Anyone can fire a rifle, but our trained soldiers will not slaughter them like cattle; it would be too much to ask and I will not. We need to provide a salient example of our power, but at the same time we need to begin to develop a logistical infrastructure beyond the portal. For this reason, we need to move the _CDG.'_

The others looked at her uneasily. 'We know nothing of the nature of this portal,' Muller replied in harshly German-accented French. 'We do not know if moving the carrier will eliminate it, or whether it is tied to the location.' He raised his hand. 'And, yes, you have made the point that the earth is moving constantly, but for all we know, it could be tied to the magnetic field, or even the weather, for all we know.'

She thanked the God in which she sometimes believed that they were left with a German soldier who had studied in France. _What would our two nations have achieved during the last century had we been allies rather than enemies,_ she had often wondered to herself. However, in this case, she was to offend him.

'I thought you would say that,' she breathed. 'That is why it is already moving; I ordered the acting captain to make sail for the island. He is already doing so, and the portal still remains.'

Stannis and Davos watched the other five explode into an orgy of shouting, finger pointing, and near assault. The last was curious; Leclerc placed his hand on the shoulder of the woman, DuPris, and she grabbed it, seemingly about to drive him into the table, but she held back and released then, her expression murderous as she looked at the others. _She is the most skilled of them_ , he thought to himself, _and the most dangerous. What is this world, and how harsh can it be, that women are forced to become so skilled?_

'You lunatic!' Kosciusko-Morizet snarled at DuPris. 'You could have damned us all, you know better than anyone how close we are to a total collapse, what happened at Pasteur was a miracle, then we were presented with another, and you could have thrown it into toilet!'

'You exceeded your authority, and acted with complete insubordination,' Leclerc growled. 'I am the ranking officer left, you do nothing without asking my permission, you know that, and yet you give orders outside the chain of command with impunity? I should have you cashiered.'

'Good luck,' DuPris replied calmly. 'You may be my superior, but the chain of command is in tatters, and I am the senior remaining combat soldier. You haven't ever even had an enemy fire at you, I served in both Afghanistan and Chad. You think the army will follow you if you try anything against me? We don't have any intact regiments, what's left is an amalgam of anyone we could save. So until we re-form in some order, you need me. Remember that. And my order to the _CDG_ was necessary; we can do nothing if it remains offshore. With it moored here, we can treat it as an extension of the island, even lay gauge if necessary. What would have taken months will now take weeks, if even.' Before they could interrupt, she pointed at the portrait of Napoleon. 'Remember whose birthplace this is, and ask yourselves: what would he have done?'

That silenced them, she saw. Napoleon had not been called the Great Gambler for no reason.

She turned to the Westerosi Lords. She had developed instant respect for Stannis; apart from his armour and sword, he was every inch the soldier. Davos seemed competent and intelligent, but he was no warrior, though she wondered what happened to his hand.

'Regardless of long term plans,' she began, 'you are engaged in a war for the throne of your country, and you suffered a recent defeat, yes?' Leclerc, though glaring at her, translated for the others.

Stannis said nothing, but Davos nodded. 'We nearly took the capital,' he told her, 'but as we we're about to breach the walls, Tywin Lannister, the Old Lion, and the Tyrells arrived with a large army and we were forced to retreat. Tywin now rules King's Landing in the name of his incest-born bastard grandson, Joffrey.'

'This … Tywin … is a formidable man?' she asked curiously, thinking.

'He is,' Stannis answered, reluctant to give any compliments to an enemy, but he had to give the man his due. 'A good general, and capable administrator. His family sigil is the Lion, his House words "Hear me Roar."'

Thinking for a moment, she turned to Leclerc, but spoke Westerosi. 'They will not expect an air attack,' she smiled. 'So we send Tigers after the Lion.'


	8. Chapter 8

Tywin Lannister sat on his chair in the Tower of the Hand, brooding. The red banners of his House hung from the walls, but he did not see them. They were for reinforcement of his image, not his contemplation.

He had won King's Landing, but held it at the cost of indulging his idiot grandchild. He had defeated Stannis Baratheon, no mean feat, but at the cost of surrendering the North to Robb Stark, who still lurked with his unbeaten army around the Trident, though he would shortly pay the price of his defiance. The Vale was still silent, the domain of that idiotic woman, and the Reach was holding him hostage with the strength of their allegiance; even the Westerlands could not match their numbers, though he could vie with them for wealth. He had little respect for Mace Tyrell, a fat fool who was the scion of a House that had leaped above its station, but he was more than aware that it was not Mace who was the power behind the machinations of Highgarden, but rather Olenna.

The Small Council meeting earlier that day had gone well enough, though he was still irritated with Baelish and Varys that they had not managed to ascertain Jaime's location, though it was only a matter of time. Sending Baelish to the Eyrie would bring the Vale into the fold, and it would have finally then been time to take the right to the North, and smash Robb Stark once and for all. Naming Tyrion, that ill formed wretch, as Master of Coin, was a gamble, but though he hated his youngest son, he could not deny that at least had intellect.

It was the last event that had worried him.

 _'If there is nothing else?' he said softly as he made to rise. Varys coughed at that moment._

 _'There may be one more matter, my Lord Hand,' the Spider informed him. Tywin crushed his irritation, sat back, and nodded to the man to continue._

 _'I have heard whispers from Dragonstone,' he informed the Council. 'Disturbing rumours from the camps of Stannis Baratheon._

 _'Surely Stannis is no threat,' Tyrion voiced his opinion. 'We destroyed half his fleet at the Blackwater, and he lost at least a third of his army when my father arrived with the Tyrells. He is an excellent commander, but without adequate forces, even he cannot be a danger.'_

 _'Let him stay on that barren rock until we are ready to deal with him,' Cersei stated bluntly from her seat. 'We will crush him when we are done with the North, the Starks are the greater threat.' Tywin saw Tyrion look at her with contempt, but crushed the slight regard he would otherwise have felt for the dwarf._

 _'Stannis is not a man to be taken lightly,' he informed the rest of the Council, 'but Tyrion is right; he is no threat where he is, and he cannot move from there. We have access to the Royal Fleet and, with the Tyrells in the fold, the Redwyne Fleet. He cannot make it to the mainland from Dragonstone.'_

 _'The rumours say otherwise, my Lords, my Lady,' Varys said quietly. 'They are confusing in the extreme, but one thing shines through the sludge. Stannis has made a new alliance with a foreign group of some kind, of which I have not previously heard. I know little of them, few seem to know much, but I have managed to find out their name. They call themselves the French, and they seem to be powerful. More than they should be.'_

 _Tywin frowned, as did Tyrion, both unknowingly thinking the same thing, that they were well read and educated men who knew of much of the world, but that they had never heard the name._

 _'Some Essosi Sellswords?' Baelish sneered. 'What harm? More mouths for him to feed on that rock, and more gold to squander from what little he has. Leave him to rot.'_

 _'From what little I can gather, he has put his army to work,' Varys continued, ignoring Littlefinger. 'They are building, constantly, though I know not what or why. I do know that the few whispers I have heard of these French speak of fire and steel, of things which should not exist, which no one understands but of which many are terrified. Of hundreds of soldiers, men and women both, dressed not in armour but with weapons that can kill a man from a mile away. Or more. Soldiers who, though the common people are terrified of them and view them as magic, behave with nothing but courtesy, but speak a language of which no one has ever heard. Stannis himself is apparently reinvigorated, and has largely discarded the Red Woman who so poisoned the morale of his men.'_

 _There was a silence for a moment. 'None of this put to a whole means anything,' Tyrion spoke softly, staring at the table and tapping his fingers. 'Disturbing, yes, but the fact remains that he cannot come from Dragonstone, regardless of what new allies he has somehow made.'_

 _'I would have said the same thing, my Lord,' Varys replied, 'save for one thing. You know of Lady Shireen, Stannis' daughter?'_

 _'The girl with Greyscale,' Tywin nodded. 'He was always worried that he would never be able to marry her off. He spoke of it to me once, years ago.'_

 _'He no longer has that problem,' Varys told him. 'The whispers are that she is cured, that these French are responsible. So, I thought, if they can cure an incurable ailment so easily and painlessly, they must have access to things of which we have not heard, of which not even the Citadel has heard. If that is so, to what other things have they access, besides their fire and steel?'_

 _At that moment, a page knocked and entered the chamber, nodding nervously and handing a scroll to Pycelle. The young men left quietly._

 _'Maester?' Tywin glared at him. 'A raven?'_

 _Pycelle nodded. 'From Dragonstone, my Lord,' he replied, and handed it to Tywin, who read it quickly, with a sharp intake of breath, then threw it onto the table, where Cersei picked it up, and read it aloud._

 _'To Tywin Lannister, hand of the bastard king, Joffrey Waters. They say a Lannister always pays his debts. After my defeat at King's Landing, you owe me thousands of lives, and I am coming to collect. Ours is the Fury. King Stannis Baratheon, rightful King of the Seven Kingdoms.'_

Tywin did not take Stannis lightly, and knew that for all his dour devotion to duty, the last living Baratheon was a man honest to a fault, very much in the mould of Ned Stark, but considerably more intelligent, and far more ruthless. Stannis would not have sent that message unless he completely convinced that his words were true, that he was coming to King's Landing with these new allies of his. Tywin had had the Maesters comb through every book they could find, looking for mention of these _French,_ but there was nothing. As though they did not exist at all until they had appeared on Dragonstone.

Tywin sipped his wine, staring at the wall, then summoned a servant. 'Send my son to me,' he ordered the boy, then dismissed him. He waited until he heard the irritating sound of his dwarf son's waddling up the stairs. The Lion of Casterly Rock quashed the slight pleasure he felt at the effort Tyrion had to muster to climb the steps of the Tower of the Hand; Tywin was not a petty man.

'Father,' Tyrion greeted him formally and was, unusually, sober at this time of the evening. Tywin rose, and walked to the window, staring out at the flickering lights of the city in the twilight.

'What do you think about Stannis' missive?' Tywin demanded of his son. 'Pour some wine if it helps you think.'

Tyrion stood at the door, slightly confused that his father was asking his opinion, something which, though not unprecedented, was rare in the extreme. The little Lannister had few hopes that this meant that his position was being reconsidered, but found both the question itself, and its being posed at all, to be intriguing.

'Stannis would not have sent that message unless he was convinced that it was true,' his son replied, pouring himself some wine and refilling his father's goblet. Tyrion sipped thoughtfully. 'So, logically, he believes that he has some way of forcing his way to the city and taking it. But, given that we decimated his fleet and he has no shipyards, or the money to hire more ships from Essos, he must believe that he has some edge that will allow him to force his way through our fleet. I assume these new allies of his have convinced him of this, but they can have no ships, because we would have heard of a large fleet making its way to Dragonstone.'

Tywin nodded slightly; it was all the acknowledge that Tyrion could expect. 'So, you do not say they cannot come,' he breathed softly, 'merely that they cannot come by sea.'

'Very droll, father,' Tyrion replied. 'But more or less that, yes. He cannot have the naval resources still to mount an attack. But, if you don't mind, were I you, I would far more worried about Stannis Baratheon than Robb Stark. Whatever the challenge of the North, Stark cannot make it this far south. Stannis somehow believes that he can. I would postpone whatever plans you have to deal with Stark in favour of preparing for whatever it is Stannis is planning.'

Tywin grunted, plans swirling in his head like multiple whirlpools, threatening to coalesce to a maelstrom beyond his ability to navigate. He had dedicated his life the preservation of his house and its legacy, and for that he needed to maintain his idiot grandson on the throne. He disregarded the shameful accusations which had been made by Stannis at the start of the war, and again in his letter, but he knew that enough would believe it had Stannis the power to convince them.

'How to prepare for that which one cannot anticipate,' Tywin said softly, more to himself than to his son. He heard a slight humming from outside, from a distance, but dismissed it as he turned from the window reaching for his goblet.

The humming grew louder.

'What is that noise?' Tyrion asked, curiously. 'I don't think I've ever heard anything like it.'

It grew louder still, and Tywin began to hear shouts from beneath the tower. He swung to the window as the noise became deafening, and the window blew open.

'What in the name of the Seven?' Tyrion asked as he moved forward to stand beside his father, the sudden and inexplicable wind nearly forcing both of them back, but not before they were both nearly blinded by a sudden white light that glared straight through the window, and turned the darkening twilight to noon in high summer. _We are a hundred feet up,_ Tywin thought to himself in that instant. _What in the name of the Gods could be this high to do something like whatever this is?_

He received his answer and, for the first time since he was a boy, Tywin Lannister, the Lion of Casterly Rock, Lord Paramount of the West and the most powerful single man in Westeros, felt bone tingling fear

'Tywin Lannister,' came a voice that boomed through the window from the source of the light, almost as though it was the voice of the Stranger. But it was not; it overwhelmed the senses, and it was the voice of Stannis Baratheon. 'I told you I was coming for you, but I will leave you a few days before I come in force. If you stand down and yield the city, your bastard grandson and his whore of a mother, I will let you and the rest of your family live. If you resist, I will burn the Red Keep to the ground and bury the Lannisters in the ashes; nothing more will be heard of your family. You have your warning.' The light went out as quickly as it had come, and what Tywin and Tyrion saw then, after their eyes had adjusted, terrified both of them to the depths of their souls.

Tyrion remembered as a child wanting so desperately to have a dragon, not even a large one, and the crushing disappointment he had felt when his uncle had told him that there were no more dragons. Whatever that monster was now hovering outside the tower, he knew that it was not a dragon. Dragons were living beings.

This was a machine, he was sure of it, but what machine could ever hope to fly?

It resembled an insect, if it could be said to resemble anything. Its noise was nothing he could describe, and the wind that came from it would have knocked his small form to the floor had it been closer. It was perhaps fifty feet from the window, which meant it was at least a hundred feet and more from the ground, and was a dull green in colour, with a glass front through which nothing could be seen. At each side, there were what appeared to Tyrion's befuddled mind stubby protuberances, almost like small wings, but they did not flap, and beneath them were slung circular shapes that filled him with dread, though he could not understand why. Above its slanted, rectangular body was what appeared to be a small hurricane, as though it could bend nature to its will to give it flight. It turned then to the side, revealing a long tail that did not move, of the same colour, with a smaller storm at the end. It rose up then, and moved away, the noise receding, leaving screams from beneath rather than silence in its wake.

Few in King's Landing, and none in the Red Keep, slept well that night,


	9. Chapter 9

Sansa emerged from her chambers to uproar.

Men and women were running to and fro though the vaulted hallways of the keep which she despised, the very symbol of her imprisonment, comfortable though it might have been now that Joffrey's sadism had been reined in by the strict and towering presence of his grandfather. That she did not have to marry him was a weight from her soul; that she knew there was someone else she would have to marry threatened to drag it down again. She was not blind to her value as both a hostage and, if her brother was killed, the last legitimate Stark – she had given up hope long ago that Arya had survived – but she prayed, not knowing to whom, either the Seven or the Old Gods, that it be someone who would at least not hurt her.

One of the Kingsguard – she forgot which one it was – accompanied her always less, she thought, because the Lannisters were afraid of her escaping more, she considered, because they were afraid of what some over-zealous lickspittle might take it into his head to do.

She saw Tyrion bustling through the hall. Though she despised everything about most of the other Lannisters – from Cersei's towering and selfish egotism to Joffrey's malicious joy in the infliction of pain to Tywin's monumental self-regard – she had found that there was something different about the dwarf, as though he was not a Lannister at all, a shade who had found himself in possession of a name he either did not merit, from one perspective, or whose curse he did not deserve, from hers. He had been kind to her when kindness could have seen him killed, and had been so without regard for the consequences. She grabbed his arm as he scuttled past – alone, strangely – and he started back from her as she did so, as though for a moment in the wildness of his eyes he did not recognise her. When his eyes focused, they softened.

'Lady Sansa,' he spoked softly, his eyes locked on hers. What he said next surprised her. 'I suspect you and I shall not meet again, which I regret.' He took her perfectly formed hand in one of his, and she found the sensation comforting as he placed the other over hers. There was no demand in his gesture, no desire, merely a comfort he was trying to convey. 'I would like to think that, in another life, you and I could have had regard for each other. Nothing more,' he hastened to add before she could say anything, 'I do not deserve anything more, a vicious whoremonger like me.' He smiled his twisted smile beneath the scars he had earned at the Blackwater. 'But some regard, I would like to think. Regardless, I will not abandon my family, Sansa,' he spoke her name in the familiar form for the first time. 'But my family is not your family, thank the Gods. Your family, your brother and your mother, await you. When the sun rises, when it strikes the Sept of Baelor, you find Bronn, Podrick and Shae. They shall be waiting in my chambers. They will get you out of this pestilential place, I have given orders that it should be so and laid aside enough gold to get you to the Trident and your brother's army. I will not suffer you to die for my sister's transgressions or my father's arrogance. That is my fate, I fear.'

Sansa never thought she would feel affection for any living soul in the hellhole which was King's Landing after her father had been executed, but she realised that she felt affection now for the awful Imp who stood in front of her. There was nothing of attraction, exactly, in what she felt – he was too old for her, too seasoned _–_ but there was something in his eyes which she couldn't determine and to which she could not put a term. A certain tired honesty, she suspected. He pulled away, but she kept her hand in his as he tried to do so. 'Lord Tyrion,' she spoke softly, 'I know your loyalty to your family, and I do not know what has made you speak this way but, if you could do anything after today, if it comes to it, please try to live, and join me with my family. I know of the troubles you had with my mother, but upon my word, you would be safe,'

He smiled gently, and pulled his hand away. 'When the sun strikes the Sept, Sansa.' He was about to turn away, then turned back and, to her shock, grabbed her by the front of her bodice but, rather than do what she in that moment expected, planted a gentle kiss on her cheek, then released her from his surprising strength. 'It is too late for me. Not yet for you.' He grasped her by the shoulders as the other nobles bustled around them, but somehow left them in peace for that moment. 'Go, Sansa, you deserved better than any of this.'

She watched him waddle away, a sadness she did not expect overcoming her.

Margaery entered her grandmother's chambers without knocking, and for that transgression she was rewarded by seeing Lord Varys rise quickly, nod briefly, and leave past her rapidly without saying anything. She looked at Olenna. 'Grandmother?' she enquired softly.

The Queen of Thorns smiled as she saw her granddaughter, though Margaery was not sure whether it was a smile of welcome or regret by the look in the elderly lady's eyes. There was something wrong in them, something that the young woman would, in the eyes of another, characterised as fear, but she could not imagine her grandmother being afraid of anything or anyone.

Olenna patted the seat beside her, and Margaery sat quietly, waiting.

'I fear our yesterdays are coming back to haunt us,' the old woman told her finally, after some moments of silence. 'Stannis is coming, and that man could no more forgive the past than he could travel back to it, or change either.'

 _Stannis?_ Margaery thought without understanding. She had heard the shouts of the servants earlier, that there had been an attack by a dragon, but she had dismissed it as the twittering of those who could not understand that there were no more dragons, and no more magic left in the world. Even if there were, she could think of no man less likely to either ride a dragon or wield magic than the last Stag.

'Stannis Baratheon?' she asked curiously. 'Surely, he is still bottled up on Dragonstone, no threat to either us or the Lannisters. Was he not badly defeated when we arrived here?'

Olenna smiled grimly. 'He seemed to be,' she replied, 'but he apparently has gained allies since. And powerful allies they apparently are. He came briefly last night while you were in your quarters on the other side of the Keep. By air, no less.'

 _What?_

The old woman saw her expression of incredulity, and smiled slightly, without mirth or pleasure, rather the steady rictus of anticipated pain. 'Yes,' she continued. 'By air. Not on a dragon, I would have been more comfortable even with that, though I know what it would mean. Aegon come again, this time with more cruelty and no forgiveness. He at least would have given the chance to bend the knee. Stannis will not even offer that when he comes, I suspect. He hates our House more than he wants the throne. He will not forget your father for the Siege of Storm's End during the Robert's Rebellion, and what that man remembers, he does not forgive. Your father held feasts outside the walls while the Stormlanders ate rats and bad mushrooms. Stannis has spoken often of the revenge he would take, were he given the chance, and now it seems as though it will he handed to him. Were it any other man, I would send you to him when he takes the city and attempt seduction, but he is not that kind of man, and would view as weakness what other men would view with lust. No, my lovely child, our chances are slim, I am afraid.

'But there is a chance?' Margaery asked desperately. She had come to the city to be Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, not to starve in a desperate siege.

Olenna smiled faintly. 'There is always a chance.'

Tywin sat at the head of the table, his features grim. Varys and Baelish sat on the left, the latter looking more disturbed than ever had before in this setting, his normal equanimity shattered. Cersei sat to the right, Joffrey pacing behind her, and Tyrion took his previous place at the end of the table, looking more focused and grim than Tywin had ever seen him.

'We can strike Stannis' beasts from the air!' Joffrey shouted, looking manic. 'It was done in Dorne, they took down a dragon! And that was only Dorne!'

'This was no dragon,' Tywin growled. 'I do not know what it was, but a dragon, it was not.'

'It was a machine of some kind,' Tyrion said softly, staring at the table. The sun was rising to the east, casting its faint rays through the window. _So little time,_ he thought to himself. _So much to do._ 'It looked like one and it sounded like one, it did not move as living creatures do, with shifting skin and muscles. It was made of metal, glass and wind.' He looked at his father. 'You saw it, father. You know what I speak is true. If it is made of metal, then it is armoured, and arrows or even scorpion bolts will bounce off it. Fire will have no effect. What else do we have? Infantry and horses? That thing flew easily two hundred feet from the ground as it left. They will be worse than useless, they will be targets.'

'If it can fire anything, we do not know that it can,' Varys opined. 'It could be a toy of some kind.'

'This was no toy!' Tywin shouted, his calm leaving him for a moment as he struggled to maintain it. 'You did not see it as closely as Tyrion and I, it was outside my window and addressed me directly when he was with me. In Stannis' voice. It might be a machine, but that alone makes it nothing short of magic.' He said the last word with a sneer, but no one disagreed. 'We must assume the worst, that it can at least damage the city and our soldiers. And if it can fly over the walls as easily as it did, then we cannot stand a siege; it will bypass the walls, and at the very least terrify our men.'

'Nothing can stand against the Lannisters and Tyrells combined,' Joffrey continued to froth. 'I am the King! I defeated Stannis once, I can do it again!'

'Joffrey,' Cersei spoke to him cautiously. 'My love.' She tried to grab his arm, but he pulled away, roughly.

'No!' he snarled, spittle coming from his mouth. 'There is nothing to discuss. You heard his terms, he called me a bastard and my mother a whore. For that alone, I will spit him. He cannot stand against the might of my armies!'

There was silence for a moment as Joffrey's words sank home. The terms were simple and stark; either Joffrey and Cersei were yielded up to Stannis, or he would come for them. Whether or not he could burn down the Red Keep was a question no one could answer, though neither Tywin or Tyrion doubted that he could, and both reached the same conclusion in the same way as they had before; this was Stannis Baratheon, and he did not make idle threats. Tyrion wryly noted to himself that Stannis had not even bothered to demand that they bend the knee.

He noted the first rays of the sun striking the Sept of Baelor. _Good luck, Sansa,_ he sighed to himself, wishing the same for Podrick, Bronn and Shae. He doubted whether they could make it out, but anything was better for them than staying here, and it was something he should have had the courage to do a long time before. It was odd that impending mortality lent clarity to purpose, or maybe it was the certain knowledge that with one's imminent death, the consequences of one's actions were quite limited in scope.

The door opened, and a Lannister officer barrelled through. 'Apologies, my Lords, my Lady,' he panted, clearly having ran up the steps of the Tower of the Hand. 'There is activity on the plain east of the city. Our soldiers are marshalling in response.'

'Stannis has moved too quickly, the fool,' Joffrey crowed as the others stood. 'We will crush him again, as we did before.'

'I don't think so,' Tyrion said softly as they left the room to make for the walls.

Joffrey had remained in the throne room, though the Small Council and Cersei had accompanied him to the wall.

At the distance it was hard to see, though Tywin's far-eye allowed him much greater clarity than the others, all of whom stood atop the eastern wall looking down at the green plain beneath, though Tyrion had his own device through which he was peering, a gift given years before by his aunt. The Tyrell banners were encamped on the western side, and had been ordered to move, but the Old Lion knew that would take time; moving tens of thousands of men was no easy matter. His own banners, led by his brother, had been encamped on the eastern side, and were now moving into formation though that, too, would take time, as they had not been expecting any attack from that side and had relaxed their discipline slightly.

What he could see disturbed him.

There were large shapes in line formation, at least a hundred of them, moving over the plain towards the city with a speed he would have considered to be impossible. They were a mottled green and brown, rectangular in shape and, like the machine that had so frightened him the night before, were probably made from metal of some sort, though there was no wind above them, and they moved on black wheels that churned the damp grass to mud beneath them. They were huge, bigger than any wagon he had ever seen, bigger even than the monstrous and impractical wheelhouse his daughter insisted upon when she travelled, though not so wide and, unlike that idiotic indulgence, they were not towed by horses, but seemed to move of their own accord, somehow. _Magic._ He quelled the thought. _There is no such thing anymore. These are men, somehow, and men can be killed. Anyone can be killed._

His own men beneath, twenty thousand at least, had gathered in rough formation as the objects slowed rapidly and then stopped, maybe a mile from his lines. He wished he was below, but he trusted his brother to command. He could hear the shouts from his soldiers who, he imagined, could not really process what they were seeing, or even put it in context. He barely could, but he knew enough of war to recognise a military formation and, as the objects remained in place in a line stretching for perhaps half a mile, he knew that was what he was seeing.

Men - he assumed they were men – moved out from the behind the objects, quickly and, again, clearly in military formation. They wore similar colours to that which decorated the wagons in which they had travelled – he had no other word to use – but carried neither swords nor shields, but oddly shaped clubs which hung in straps from their shoulders, black in colour. Ten emerged from each of the wagons, and stood in a rough line between each one, a thousand men facing twenty thousand, though they were well out of arrow range, and made no move.

'There are days when I would have preferred to have stayed in bed,' Tyrion whispered beneath him, and he shot his son a look of irritation that he should attempt levity in such a moment. 'I do not know what the hell those things are, but I know that's an army of some type, and I also know that to send a thousand against twenty betrays either absolute confidence or absolute stupidity. Sadly. Stannis is not a stupid man.'

'How can you be sure these are Stannis' men?' Varys asked, his normally tanned face slightly paler than normal.

'Oh, trust me, they are definitely his, or rather these allies of his,' Tyrion replied. 'Stannis' banner is painted on each one.' Tywin, who was too engrossed in that the objects were doing, had not noticed that, though he saw that they also sported another sigil he did not recognise, three equal stripes of blue, white and red. Cersei, beside him, snorted.

'Then they are idiots,' she said scornfully. 'A thousand men against all our banners?'

Tywin was unsure at that moment which of his children disappointed him more, Tyrion on principle or Cersei because of her blind stupidity. He signalled one of his soldiers, who was nearby, and the man ran to one of the turrets, ordering a flag to be raised that he knew his brother would see, giving the order to advance. He did not know into the teeth of what they would be moving, but equally he knew that he had no choice but to move. To do nothing would be to look weak, and Tywin abhorred weakness.

As his men began to move, archers readying their arrows for the first volley once they moved into range, he heard the same humming he had heard before, though louder, and his heart began to beat more rapidly.

'Gods,' Baelish and Cersei said at the same time. They had not seen the object the previous night.

There were ten of them, and they also moved in formation as they blew aside the morning mist. They flew lower this time, maybe fifty feet from the ground, though they seemed to be of more threatening aspect than the one he had seen, their dark and sloped glass front pointed more towards the ground, as though looking at his soldiers whose advance came to a shuddering halt, absent orders from their officers, though in this case he could not blame them.

The flying objects stopped above the line of men and wagons, and hovered menacingly, perhaps five hundred yards from the front of his own line. He was about to signal his brother to continue the advance, or to at least try, when the machines did something that made him down his own sanity for a moment.

Fire erupted from the stubby wings on each side of each machine, and with thunderous roar twenty simultaneous explosions tore the ground apart perhaps a hundred yards from the line, mud and dirt blowing into the front rank of Lannister banners. Each machine had bucked, very slightly, and some sort of object had hurtled from them to impact the ground in a storm of fire that left deep, smoking craters where previously there had been flat grassland. The line of infantry moved back slightly, though their officers shouted at them to stand fast, but even Tywin could not expect men to stand against that. The line of men beneath the flying machines did not react, as though they had expected it, and made no noise, remaining eerily quiet.

The machines rose slightly in the air as he could almost feel the fear coming from his men below, and peeled away in perfect formation, five on each side moving to the right and left to a position behind the line of men and wagons, hovered for a moment, and then gently lowered to the ground, the small storms above them gradually lessening until they ceased, revealing themselves to have been a kind of four – crossed blade that moved so rapidly it generated its own wind, though how that could enable flight, Tywin did not understand.

His men seemed to have gathered their courage as the machines landed, and began to move again, though slowly, and their formation was not as perfect as before as they had to manoeuvre around the craters.

'You have your answer, Lord Varys,' Tyrion said to the Spider, then turned to his father. 'You cannot send our men against _that,_ ' he pleaded. 'You will just be throwing away lives.'

'I have no choice,' Tywin replied grimly. His men entered bow range, and he heard the officers give orders to nock their arrows.

The enemy soldiers moved back into the wagons as easily and as smoothly as they had left them, without any haste, at a shouted order in a language he did not recognise, though it was spoken too loudly to have come from one voice alone and, more, it was a woman's voice.

The volley of arrows clanged harmlessly against the wagons, which indicated that they were indeed metal. Part of the front of them seemed to be carved from glass, but even there, the arrows made no impact. The officers gave orders for another volley, and the ground again exploded in front of them.

This time it was not from the flying machines, who remained where they were, quietly and without movement, but rather from the odd shapes that were mounted on the top of the wagons. The roar must have been deafening to the front line of his own soldiers, and was disturbing even from this distance, as the shapes spat fire that chewed up the ground not ten yards from the front of the Lannister line. It was not as dramatic as the previous demonstration, and no craters were created or objects that he could see fired, but mud and stones were showering the front rank, and he had no doubt that something, maybe arrowheads, was being fired from those shapes, and equally had no doubt that whatever that something was, it would annihilate his line. As suddenly as it started, the deafening noise ceased, smoke coming from the shapes, but the ground in front of his soldiers was pockmarked with small holes and tiny trenches.

Behind the line of wagons and strange soldiers, Tywin could see, in the far distance, the fluttering of flame-red banners. _Stormlanders,_ he realised

He knew then the strategy behind the actions of the enemy. They were attempting to intimidate him, to force him to retreat without a fight, to show weakness in front of his own bannermen and his reluctant Tyrell allies. To have it known that Tywin Lannister, the Lion of Casterly Rock, had left the field without engaging, and the thought angered him.

'We fight, or we die. There are no other options,' Tywin said, more to himself than to the others.

'I'm afraid there are,' Tyrion said sadly, and Tywin looked at him, not understanding the tone in his son's voice. He felt something cold at his throat, and turned slightly to see Randall Tarly, who also gripped his sword arm, preventing him from drawing.

All along the wall, Tyrell soldiers began to move into position around them as Tyrion nodded to Tarly, who dragged Tywin from the wall. Other Tyrell men quickly apprehended Cersei and Baelish, though not Varys.

Tarly forced Tywin to his knees, and the Lord of Casterly Rock could not see what was happening over the battlements, but he heard singing then in a language he did not recognise, a hymn that was at the same time evocative and blood-curdling.

 _'Allons enfants de la Patrie, Le jour de gloire est arrivé!'_


	10. Chapter 10

Captain Aubray Hill stood at the starboard railing of his warship, _the Spear of the Rock._ There was no moon in the sky, and the faint reflections of the stars bounced from the gentle circular course to the north of King's Landing, part of the northern squadron of the Royal Fleet. The other squadron guarded Blackwater Bay. To the south sailed part of the Redwyne Fleet, though nothing would be coming in their direction from Dragonstone and the remnants of Lord Stannis's navy.

He shuddered as he remembered the story of what had happened the Baratheon Fleet at the Blackwater and, though he would have wished it on his enemies rather than his allies, he would not have wished Wildfire on either. It was no way for a sailor to die.

Hill had worked his way from scrubbing decks twenty years ago – he had never known his father, and it was the only type of work he could find in Lannisport – to Captain of the one of the finest warships in the Lannister Fleet. Now the much-diminished Royal Fleet, of course, since Stannis had taken the bulk of the captains and ships with him when he had fled to Dragonstone, more than one hundred ships. Fully half of them were now beneath the waves of Blackwater Bay, and many of the rest were badly in need of repairs – he and his fellow Lannister captains had harried them mercilessly during their retreat from the capital. He had received ten dragons from Kevan Lannister for his efforts that terrible night, and a nod of appreciation. Somehow, the gold would have been more valuable to him had it come from Tywin. He had kept three for himself, and given the rest to his wife in Lannisport.

He sighed, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply the scent of the calm sea and the summer breeze from the south.

He was about to call to his bosun, who was at the tiller, to routinely enquire whether anything could be seen, though could see well himself that there was nothing, when he felt something gently impact the port side of the ship. It was little more than a tip but, for a man who had spent two decades at sea, it was enough to pique his curiosity.

He moved to the far side of the ship but, before he could take more than two steps, a man – something shaped like a man, but dressed in clothing blacker than night with two glowing green eyes and no face visible – vaulted the railed and clubbed him directly into the chin with something hard and metallic. He fell to the deck with a quiet groan, and felt himself immediately being roughly turned over and, before he could even shout, his arms were quickly bound, one to the other in way he could not understand.

Despite the danger, and the sound of more men mounting the rail, he shouted an incoherent warning at his bosun, who turned and reached for his dagger –

\- then dropped to the deck as one of the man things levelled a club at him, from which two strings erupted silently, hitting the man dead centre. He flopped on the deck like a dying fish on a hook.

Two other men moved then, pulling their daggers – most men were below in their hammocks, but the man things levelled their clubs, and thunder erupted from them, driving both men to the ground with groans as they clutched their chests, though he could not see blood.

One of the man things made straight for the hatch, removed two cylindrical objects from its belt, ripped something from them, and threw them into the hold below where the men were mostly sleeping. As the three on the deck were secured in a similar manner as he had been, men began to stumble through a haze of fireless smoke from the hold. Each one was incapacitated as easily as the other three had been, mostly with quick blows to the side of the head, some with more roars of thunder. They were all bound to the rear and left face down on the deck, some groaning with pain, most silent.

The entire affair had lasted less than three minutes.

He struggled awkwardly to his knees, then managed to stand on shaking legs, though he could not free his arms. One of the man things turned lazily in his direction, holding its club, though pointed at the deck rather than at him, thankfully.

'What are you?' he hissed in a voice that struggled to hide his terror. The green glows where eyes should have been unnerved him, though he was more than aware that, as far as he could tell, none of his men had been seriously harmed, except maybe his bosun, who now was merely groaning in pain.

The man thing lifted its arm, and removed the mask it had been wearing, pulling down a scarf from its lower face.

It was quite human, though the man had the hard face of a soldier. _'Ne bouge pas, mec,'_ he said in a surprisingly soft voice, though the accent of whatever language he was speaking was guttural and unpleasant.

More men came up behind Hill then, but at least they were … _normal._

Even if they were Stormlanders and Dragonstone men, one of whom he recognised with a snarl as he bucked against his unyielding restraints.

'Coffer,' he snarled at the captain who had sank his ship during one of the early skirmishes of this damned war. He was one of Stannis' loyal men, who had gone with him with his ship to Dragonstone, a veteran of the Ironborn rebellion, beside Stannis when the Baratheon had ruptured Victarion's line and drove the Ironborn against the rocks. He hated few men, but he despised the Baratheon Captain. 'You fucking traitor. You think taking my ship will make a difference to this?'

Coffer, a man in his forties with a narrow, scarred face, returned his look maliciously. 'No,' he replied smugly. 'But my Lord Stannis' fleet is perhaps an hour away to the east, and this is not the only ship we have taken. I think that might make a difference.'

It took less than forty-five minutes to seize all 37 ships of the northern squadron, disarm, restrain and then replace the crews. The drones had pinpointed the locations of the ships precisely; the ten man squads had done their jobs perfectly. Not one life had been taken.

Behind them, Stannis' fleet, from which the speedboats had launched, sailed in absolute quiet, under the cover of a moonless night. The only noise was the soft hum of the outboard motors which assisted the barges being towed by the ships, holding one hundred VAB armoured personnel carriers, and ten Tigers.

The sea remained calm and co-operative in its dark stillness.

Stannis stood at the forecastle of his flagship, _Baratheon's Revenge._ When he had built it, he remembered Robert wondering to him in his cups for what it was he wanted revenge.

' _There is always someone against whom we can avenge ourselves, brother,'_ he had replied grimly, turning away from his drunk fool of a King.

He stared into the dark night, as he so often in the days following his bitter retreat from the Blackwater and the cursed Imp's trick. _No,_ he told himself. _It was not the Imp, not really, he alone could not have stopped me. I would raise a glass to Tyrion, he did his duty. It was Tywin and the damned Tyrells._

There was always someone against whom he could avenge himself.

Leclerc and DuPris stood beside him, with one of the orphans of Dragonstone who had revealed an uncanny command of language; Davos was on one of the other ships. And his daughter was with him – his beautiful, unmarred daughter. He suspected that he would never have been able to take her had she not been cured of the Greyscale – not because he would have been ashamed, for he had never been ashamed. No, it was the cure for the Greyscale which had made Melisandre leave Dragonstone, murmuring something about the flames taking her north, which left his wife in such a flood of absence-fuelled grief that she had shut herself away and barely said a word when he had informed her that he was taking Shireen with him. It was as well, he thought coldly to himself. There had never been any real affection between them, and when he looked at her it reminded him of the one time he had failed in his duty.

He would not do so again, so his heir – and translator, for she had become most proficient in the language of the foreigners – stood beside him. The wind blew in her hair, tied back from her face in a black braid, and she wore chain armour suited for her size. He had even begun, at her request, to train her in the use of a sword and, while clumsy as all beginners were, she showed promise. She was also, DuPris had informed him, very proficient with the use of these _rifles._

He had been afforded the opportunity of their use and practice, too, and found them both barbaric and terrifyingly useful. To kill a man with a sword was honourable; to kill a man from a distance he could barely detect was efficient. And frightening.

Beside him, DuPris' thoughts were heading in a dozen different directions. She did not doubt the soundness of the plan, but it had been put together so quickly and with such little margin for error that so many minor things could go wrong as to derail everything. Stannis had pressed hard for a full demonstration of their power, saying that only such a thing would cow such a man as Tywin Lannister, but it had been Davos who pointed out that Tywin's power was not absolute, that it depended on a coalition of shifting interests who had little to bind themselves together save the first imperative of survival and the second of power. Prove that either could be snatched away easily, and that coalition would shatter. And the best way to prove that was not kill a man, but to persuade him that you could do much worse. Reluctantly, Stannis had acceded, though he had not understood this peculiar squeamishness on the part of these obviously hardened soldiers to take lives until Leclerc had explained it him in the simplest terms imaginable.

' _Could a child, helpless in its crib, defend itself against your sword, Lord Stannis?' the colonel had asked him one morning as they were overseeing the laying of the metalled road from the portal to the road being built to the harbour at Dragonstone. 'And would you kill one?'_

' _Of course not,' Stannis had ground out his reply. 'What threat could a child ever be to me?'_

 _Leclerc had smiled faintly. 'My soldiers feel the same way and, against them, your soldiers have about as much power as a baby would against you. They will kill only when they need to, and as yet we see no need.'_

DuPris had known that she could easily have destroyed the ships standing watch to the north of the capital – a couple of RPGs into their hull would sink them – but it was killing pointlessly and, more, it was a waste. They needed as many of these sailing ships as they could get to ferry supplies to the mainland, for she was sure that, even with the capital taken, this would not mean the end of this war these people were fighting with such frenzied, desperate viciousness. It was war on an eighteenth century scale using thirteenth century technology, she had realised, which was not an ideal combination, though at least it had yet to reach a Napoleonic level of devastation or devotion.

Their gamble was being taken without the use of _any_ logistical tail; they had loaded the APCs to their maximum capacity, the Tigers too, but she knew that it would only be enough for a trip to and back from the capital, that they could engage in no manoeuvre, that it was a simple show of strength which, they hoped, would be enough to cow the Lords of the city to quick and painless submission. Behind her, she knew that Stannis had gathered all his remaining infantry and cavalry, save for a small garrison he had left at Dragonstone. More than twenty thousand men were crammed into the ships behind and the hold below, placing enormous strain on the sails of the ships, which were also towing the APCs and helicopters to conserve fuel. They had also brought the fleet perilously close to the enemy fleet. She had mortars mounted on the prow of every ship in the van, and soldiers to operate them, as well as others with RPGs waiting to use them if need be, but it was not something she desired.

She prayed the squads did their jobs well, and avoided casualties, using only impact rounds and Tasers rather than live ammunition, but she also prayed that they did their jobs quickly. They could not afford the enemy squadron being able to warn the other naval detachments of an invasion being conducted in the dead of night straight through the teeth of their defensive ring.

 _All we have to do is land the barges and offload the ships,_ she repeated to herself, over and over again. _Get them ashore, the job is half done._

Well, that job would be half done. The job of evacuation …

She was glad that Leclerc was looking after that, because the logistics alone would have given her a headache. 700,000 hungry people being ferried into a world for which were not prepared without any modern infrastructure for a minimum of three years … she did not envy him either his task or the abilities that fitted him so well for it.

To distract herself, she began a conversation with a man of whom she had learned turned glum taciturnity into a form of stoic art. 'Your daughter is very beautiful, Lord Stannis,' she said to him, thinking of nothing else which she could say. 'The removal of the scar tissue must be of some relief to you and to her mother.'

Stannis grunted in reply. Leclerc smirked beside her and she was about to despair of the anything even approaching the dregs of a conversation when, surprisingly, he volunteered the beginnings of one. 'I have no idea what her mother thinks, anymore,' he said harshly. 'My marriage to my wife has been less than satisfactory for either of us. As for myself, I had despaired of a marriage for my daughter to a man suitable to her station, though I no longer do.' He seemed to reach for the blushing Shireen with his right hand, then controlled himself, placing his left on the pommel of his sword.

'You do not let your children choose their own spouses?' she said curiously, though she realised that she should have known better. In a world where property was the only real form of wealth, marriage was far too serious to be left the random desire.

'Only the smallfolk in Westeros have that luxury, for they have very little to lose,' he replied. 'The Game of Thrones is built on alliances, and marriage is the best way to solidify one. Some allow their second or third sons to choose, but I would not. My brother allowed me ne choice in my marriage. Unless I die before my daughter is betrothed, she will marry the man I choose. That is how things are.' He looked at her. 'Your father will have no say in who you marry?' he asked curiously.

'My father is dead some years,' she replied softly, the grief still strong. 'My mother died more recently, of the Dead Plague. And even were they alive, no, they would have no say. Our society was very much like yours some two hundred years ago, but with the advent of industrialisation, wealth moved from being something of the land to something more nebulous. Marriages among people in my culture are made willingly between the spouses themselves.'

'What is "industrialisation"?' Shireen asked curiously. DuPris had used the French word in Westerosi, because they had no equivalent.

Leclerc smiled at her as, in the far distance, they could see the lights of the royal squadron. 'I imagine you will find out within your lifetime, my dear,' he informed her, thinking to himself. He already had qualified personnel looking for oil; none had been found on Dragonstone, though it had no shortage of coal. He smiled to himself, imagining the belching chimneys of factory towns rising from the plains of the Seven Kingdoms, St. Etienne on the Blackwater rather than the Loire. _Progress has its price._ He lit a cigarette.

'What is that?' Stannis demanded.

The 37 ships of the northern squadron of the Royal Fleet now flew the Baratheon banner. Prisoners had been transferred to the Baratheon ships, and the skeleton crews who had accompanied the French soldiers had been ordered the return to Dragonstone to pick up more troops, horses and supplies. _Finally, we will have something on which to fall back if this goes wrong,_ DuPris thought as her heart beat faster upon the approach of the shore.

The ships laid anchor, and the barges were unmoored from the hulls, relying on their motors to get them ashore. They were nearly out of diesel, she knew, but it had been enough. The barges moved through the darkness and beached, the APCs starting their engines with a roar that shook the silence of the shore near the town of Rosby, though they had no plans to go anywhere near it.

One of the Tigers, the one with the recording that they had spent two hours persuading Stannis to make, took off immediately, the whir of its blades blowing sand and clay into the faces of those observed, most of whom either swallowed deeply or prayed to the Seven that such things were on their side rather than that of their enemy's. It moved rapidly in the direction of King's Landing, disappearing into the darkness which, with the night vision technology which had so disturbed the Westerosi when it had been demonstrated to them, mattered to its crew not at all. She had promised to send Tigers after the Lion; in the end, she had sent one.

Behind them, the Stormlanders and Dragonstone men climbed aboard the boats to ferry them to the shore, their horses whinnying at the uncomfortable displeasure of the chore, though as trained mounts, they obeyed their masters. It would take time, they all knew, to unload all the troops and have them mustered in formation to move behind the APCs, time they knew that they had, but that they did not want to waste. King's Landing awaited, and it was ripe.

It had been agreed that Ser Justin Massey would command the Stormlander and Dragonstone hoste, following behind the advance guard of the APCs and Tigers, who would move on ahead. Stannis, Davos and Shireen would accompany the French in their armoured cars, in the main command vehicle. Though Leclerc outranked her, it had also been agreed that DuPris would have operational command, as she had the most combat experience. Leclerc was already too invested in the logistics of moving his people, and was not an egotistical man, in any case. He was happy to defer to experience, if not rank, in a situation as unique as this one.

The APCs thundered across the plain, the nine Tigers above them. It was scarcely 90 kilometres from the landing zone to the capital, and they moved at a sedate 40 kmph, partly to conserve fuel, which they knew they might need, and partly to give the infantry and cavalry at least a small chance to keep pace. When they met the tenth Tiger, during the early hours of the morning, they stopped for some hours to allow the marching hoste behind to catch up.

They were scarcely 16km from King's Landing.

Stannis emerged from the vehicle in which he had been travelling with his Hand and his daughter, his legs shaking slightly, as a result both of the speed at which they had been travelling for the last two hours and the assurances that it was nowhere near as fast as could be travelled, either in this vehicle or others whose acquaintance he was assured that he would make. Davos was similarly stunned, though Shireen was beaming with excitement as her father helped her down, her small sword to her left side, her pistol to her right. Davos also carried one, but for the moment, Stannis refused. It was right that his daughter, his heir, should have all the protection possible, and Davos could not wield a sword, but as yet he no need for he himself to do so. He had been advised against taking his daughter, but she was his heir, the next Queen of the Seven Kingdoms; he would ram down throats if they did not open for the bitter water of necessity's truth. She needed battle experience, and she would get it.

The high walls of King's Landing, against which he had desperately, and futilely, thrown half his army, loomed in the distance, the Red Keep visible above them. There was an army at the base of the walls, flying Lannister colours, Stannis saw, and he also saw them mustering.

He was standing beside DuPris, Davos and Shireen. 'What do you see?' he asked his daughter.

She peered into the distance, though they were close enough not to need a Far-Eye, and a child's vision was superior to that of an adult. 'They are mustering, Father,' she replied clearly. 'The infantry is moving to shield the archers, and the cavalry is moving to the flanks. It is a classic offensive formation; they probably believe that, because we are outnumbered, we will retreat.' She set herself with a confidence she would not have felt mere months before. 'We will not retreat, Father. Our allies are too powerful.'

He nodded faint approval, proud in a way he could never properly express. He could see DuPris smiling slightly beside him, also in approval at the quick intelligence of the young girl.

The Lannister army began to move beneath the walls, slowly. 'What would you do now?' he asked her.

She thought to herself, listing quickly the assets at Baratheeon command, from the troops following closely behind to the untested – and so far untestable – abilities of their allies. 'I would order the aircraft to move,' she used the French word easily, 'and show the Lannisters of what they are capable.' She thought to herself again. 'If the stories we have been told are to be believed, then they can demonstrate their power against the earth without shedding blood. We may need these soldiers when we move against the Tyrells and the North. It would be senseless to massacre them.' She held to the pommel of her shortsword, very much the warrior in self-belief if not yet in experience and never in station, though her father was beginning to disagree with the last. She looked up at him. 'Send the Tigers, father. Order a volley into the ground not fifty yards in front of them. If that gives them no pause, we still have other options.'

Stannis agreed completely with his daughter, and looked to DuPris. She grinned, and gave the order in rapid French to the captain commanding the Tiger detachment. She was beginning to like these Baratheons.

The Tigers did their job, rising from behind the APCs and firing a volley of rockets into the earth in front of the Lannister line. The line bulged inwards as the men, trained though they were, pulled back from the firestorm to which they had been forced to bear witness. Yet it stabilised, and moved forward slowly. Stannis doubted that Tywin was in direct command, but he knew these men had been trained by the Old Lion, and they would not be cowed, even by such a demonstration. Their officers would not allow it. _There are no bad soldiers,_ DuPris had told him. _Only bad officers, so said the Emperor._

'Arrows next, Father,' Shireen informed him seriously, as though he had not thought of it, but he smiled inwardly if he could not externally. 'They will approach and launch a volley. This will not affect the APCs. We should retreat inside and let them bounce. Let them see the futility of their efforts.'

'I agree,' DuPris interjected, and gave the order, which was repeated by tannoy. The troops moved smoothly back inside the APCs, as the arrows which were inevitably launched bounced harmlessly from the steel and hardened glass.

They were seated in the command vehicle as they heard the impact of the volley, like rainwater against a window, for all the impact it could have made. 7.62mm NATO rounds would have made as little difference, DuPris thought as they huddled in the cramped space of the command APC. She grinned, carelessly. Stannis showed no reaction, nor would he, but his daughter was a different animal, fervent and eager. 'What next, Princess?' she asked, genuinely curious. She saw in the girl a great deal of herself, though the girl would never attend St. Cyr. _We must establish an equivalent,_ she realised. _Once we have retrieved all of our knowledge and transferred it._

Stannis was about to speak, but his daughter forestalled him. 'Give them a volley from the cannon above,' she grinned ferally. 'But don't hit the soldiers. Let them realise against what army they march.'

DuPris grinned, too, and gave the order.

The Lannister forces stopped in their tracks. For all of the urging of their officers, they would not move against a firestorm, nor could even Stannis blame them. For all his devotion to duty, even he would not insist that his men move into the teeth of such fire.

'The Stormlanders!' ' came a shout from behind as the banners advanced. Fully twenty thousand armed and armoured veterans of the Blackwater had caught up.

A white flag waved from the battlements, and Shireen grinned again as she and her father emerged from the APC.

They had won the day.


	11. Chapter 11

Tyrion stumbled back to his small room, though it was not from alcohol – _would that it were,_ he thought bitterly to himself, knowing that he had sizable quantity of wine in which he planned to liberally indulge – but more from the shock of what he had seen. The light from the candles which illuminated the corridor had hit his eyes as he had left his father's dimly lit chambers after the visitation of that ungodly machine, and in each flame he saw the death of thousands. Tywin had crushed the goblet he had held in his hand as the machine had flown away serenely over the walls, having with its wind, its terrifyingly alien aspect, and its stark, awful message, shattered the peace of thousands, never to be put together again. With each step back through the shrinking corridors from the Tower of the Hand to his own room, he had felt the weight of the lives of those beneath, knowing that Stannis would slaughter all of them and march across their bloodied corpses to sit the Iron Throne. And never regret a moment. Stannis was a man for self-reflection, he knew, but having done what he perceived to be his duty, he would never regret any atrocity committed in its pursuit.

And his allies apparently had command of the air such as to be envied by Aegon the Conqueror himself. Tyrion had no real basis for knowing this, but he felt it in his bones. Those tubes on either side of the body of the machine terrified him as much as might a dragon's maw as it was about to exhale.

Gods, but he needed a drink.

He opened the door to his room, and stopped. There was something amiss.

'Shae?' he called carefully. 'Bronn? Pod?'

As he closed the door carefully behind him, he reached across to the small table beside it and grabbed a metal jug, empty at the moment, aware of how ridiculous he must have looked to anyone who might be there who would threaten him, the Demon Monkey holding an empty jug as high as he could.

A child emerged diffidently from his small bedroom, wearing odd clothing of a cut he did not recognise, but well-made and form-fitting. She looked to be perhaps nine or ten, with long sandy hair and a pretty face that wore a worried expression. He lowered the jug and replaced it on the table, exhaling slowly. Fears aplenty he had, but he had yet to fear a child.

He smiled as best he could. 'You should not be here, girl,' he told her sternly. 'Where are the other servants?'

She said nothing for a moment, then jerked her head behind her, towards the bedroom. He moved cautiously in that direction, and wished he had not replaced the jug, though he could not understand what difference it would make, given what he could see.

Bronn and Pod were sitting with their backs to the wall, their hands behind them; he assumed that they were tied. They were also gagged, and Bronn had a cut on his forehead above his right eye that dribbled blood slowly down his face, which wore an expression of thunderous fury. Shae was sitting at the table, unbound, though she was looking in terror at the large man who sat in the corner, his back to the wall.

He was big, over six feet in height by the look of him, though he remained seated. His shoulders were broad, though not massive, and he was wearing oddly coloured mottled green clothing, very much similar in colour to the machine which had so recently frightened him. His features were regular and his blonde hair, similar in colour to Tyrion's own, was close cropped, his expression blank as he leaned back on his chair. _He is of the people who sent that message,_ Tyrion realised, his heart beating rapidly. _One of Stannis' allies._ The dwarf would have feared for his life, but the man had not harmed either of his friends or his lover so, he realised, were homicide his intention, he was making a poor start of it.

The child spoke, waking him from his brief reverie, though not his fear. Her accent was odd, not one with which he was familiar, somewhat guttural and halting, obviously unused to the language of Westeros, though she spoke it well enough.

'You are Tyrion Lannister?' she asked quietly.

He jerked a nod, still rooted in the same position.

'This is _Oberstleutnant_ Muller of the _Bundeswehr,'_ she told him, as though such alien terms should mean something to him. 'He cannot speak your language yet. I am to translate.' She spoke then to the man at the desk, who smiled softly and answered her. Their language was unpleasant to Tyrion's ears, harsh and cruel-sounding. The man rose and removed something from a pouch on his belt, perhaps seven inches wide but shallow in depth, with a glassy black surface that reflected the gentle glow of the candles

'He wants to show you something,' the child informed him. 'And answer any questions you might have.'

Two hours later, Tyrion turned to Pod who, with Bronn, had been released to stand beside his Lord and witness all the wonders which had been demonstrated, the dreadful horrors these people had inflicted _on themselves,_ and the frightful inevitability of defeat as a consequence of either inaction or what would be his father's characteristic obstinacy. He turned to Podrick. 'Bring Varys here, _now,_ ' he ordered. 'I don't care if you have to drag him from his bed. We have little time and fewer choices. He is the only one Olenna will listen to.'

The wind whistled through the battlements, blowing against the white flag Tyrion had hastily ordered raised as his father remained kneeling on the stone with Tarly's dagger at his throat. The Lannister soldiers on the walls had all been disarmed and bound by the Tyrell men; the Roses of Highgarden had fewer soldiers in the city than the Lions of the Rock, though they were concentrated at the defensive strongpoints and the wall. This coup would not last long under ordinary circumstances, but Tyrion could not think of any aspect of this situation which could be so described.

'You treacherous wretch,' his father snarled at him, black murder in his eyes to the extent that Tyrion's shiver had nothing to do with the cold. 'I will see you dead slowly for this! You turn against your own family?'

'I am trying to protect my family,' the dwarf replied sadly as Tarly released Tywin to the attention of one of his other soldiers. 'You just can't see it because your conception of family is so twisted it turns on itself like the snake eating its tail. Maybe my concept of family was always more elevated than yours.' He smiled his crooked, cynical smile, with a glance towards his sister, who also shot daggers at him, though he was more used to those. 'Or maybe I am simply yielding King's Landing to the legitimate King of the Seven Kingdoms.' He turned back to his father. 'Because I know for a fact that Joffrey is not, his father is not in the Royal Crypts but rather currently a prisoner of Robb Stark. And I have informed the Tyrells of this. Caught between an incest born bastard who has no more claim to the throne than he has the temperament or the brains to sit on it, and Stannis Baratheon, it seems they have chosen Stannis. Which should tell you something about your grandson. Lord Tarly,' he spoke to the Lord of Horn Hill. 'I think it is time we met our King,' Tarly nodded grimly. Cersei was screaming incoherent threats and abuse at her brother which, in the moment though he was nervous and apprehensive of Stannis and his unknown allies, was music to Tyrion's ears.

'I meant what I said, Tyrion,' his father called after him as he was roughly dragged to his feet and bound to the rear. 'You are no son of mine, and I _will_ see you dead, if it takes me the rest of my life.'

Tyrion stopped briefly, and turned. 'I am your son,' he replied softly. 'I have always been your son.'

Stannis stood beside Davos and Shireen, Leclerc and DuPris slightly behind, flanked on either side by five hundred fully armed French soldiers, the APCs with their cannon trained and the Tigers ready at a moment's notice to take to the air. The wind blew gently across the plain against the banners of the Lannisters, Tyrell and Stormland hosts as they faced each other, though none moved. The Lannister line, which had milled initially in confusion as the surrender order was given from the walls of King's Landing, had stabilised when the gates had opened behind them, and the line had parted, though they had placed no foot forward. That, they knew, would be suicide against the cannon of the APCs, at which some of the Lannister soldiers stared as though they had seen the face of the Stranger himself.

Stannis knew better than to believe such nonsense. The only God he worshipped was duty, and she was a harder mistress than any shade preached by the Septons and believed in by their delusional followers.

Tyrion Lannister walked through the small gap in the lines, the Spider beside him, followed by Randyl Tarly and Kevan Lannister. A litter was being borne slightly farther behind, which Stannis assumed contained Olenna Tyrell. He wondered about the absence of Mace, but realised quickly that they knew better than to antagonise him, and they were few easier ways of so doing than to force him to speak to the Fat Fool of Highgarden. Tarly he at least respected, and he knew that Olenna had disapproved of her son's actions during the rebellion. He had never met Kevan Lannister, though he knew the man to be the loyal servant of his brother who had done Tywin's bidding in all things, so wondered to himself where was the old Lion, that he would send his brother and his despised son in his stead. He had little time for Tywin, but he had never believed him to be a coward. _Interesting._

Stannis, in his plain armour, stepped forward past the line of the French, who held their weapons ready but had not unslung them from their shoulders. King's Landings' high, and now completely ineffectual and impotent, walls loomed in the background, the objective against which he had dashed the better part of his army, only to be saved by providence. He would have smiled to himself were he capable; the never forgotten slight that his brother had made, of giving him Dragonstone instead of Storm's End, had been his salvation, for he knew not what he would have done had the French not arrived.

But they had, and he would make good use of his good fortune.

'Speak your piece, Lannister,' he said bluntly, acknowledging Tyrion with the barest nod of his head. Unlike many, he was not so stupid as to hold the man's deformity against him, and he had never understood how such an intelligent man as Tywin had clung to such irrational dislike for so long. He had no affection for his wife, but he had never blamed her for his lack of male heir. Such things were beyond the control of men, and so had been the dwarf's birth and Joanna's sad death. 'If it is less than surrender, then you may return to your lines and see how long your gates hold against my armies.'

'Yes, your new armies,' Tyrion replied, his hair blowing in the breeze, almost shielding the vicious scar across his face, which had not been there the last time they had met. Maybe, Stannis thought to himself, he had received it at the Blackwater, which was far less than he deserved after his trick with the Wildfire, though Stannis did not hold it against him. War was war, he knew better than anyone. 'The _French._ Odd, that none of us here have never heard of them, that you could magic them from nowhere to raise machines and fire from nothing. Odder still that they seem reluctant to kill, for soldiers. I wonder would they let you storm the walls. Or deploy against our forces.'

There was a crack from behind Stannis, and one of the Lannister soldiers fell groaning, clutching his upper arm tightly with a stream of curses. Tyrion nearly jumped at the sudden noise, and both Kevan Lannister and Randyl Tarly turned their heads so quickly to the soldier, as the litter was nearly dropped as it approached, that Stannis thought their necks might break. He turned, and saw Shireen replacing her pistol – Stannis had been fully educated about the different terminologies – beside Leclerc and DuPris, who looked at her with respective expressions of shock and pride. Stannis' reactions were a mixture of both, though verging towards the latter than the former. She would not have had the confidence to do that mere months before, and it shamed him that he had contributed to her introversion previously, though he had not been aware at the time that he had been doing so; it was only her recently found confidence that had so allowed her to confide in him. She was his only heir and, if she continued as she was, with training from both himself and the French, she would be a Queen such as the Seven Kingdoms had never had in a King. She was soft-hearted, which was not a fatal flaw in and of itself, but it had to be tempered with a certain ruthlessness, which she had just demonstrated, so slightly yet so effectively. No, in that moment he felt nothing but pride.

Stannis replied to Tyrion's gambit. 'Not all of my army are so limited, even if you were to think that my allies are,' he replied calmly. 'If my daughter of thirteen can use these weapons proficiently, imagine what my trained soldiers can do.'

'I believe you have proved part of your point, Baratheon,' Olenna wheezed as she stepped shakily from the litter; he believed it was more infirmity than fear than governed her tremulous movements. He knew Olenna of old, as had his father, and Stefffon Baratheon had had nothing but respect for the Queen of Thorns, the true ruler of the Reach. 'Or your newly lovely daughter has. These allies of yours have great powers to make a whole girl of a half girl.'

Stannis merely stared at her for a moment, but it was Tyrion who spoke, irritably. 'They say I am half a man, Lady Olenna,' he replied shortly. 'The Lady Shireen is considerably more. As I think she has just proved.' He turned back to Stannis. 'To terms, then.'

Stannis did not relish his triumph; he would not have done so, even had his assault on the city previously have proved successful. The Iron Throne was his, by right, and it would not do to gloat upon victory, so much more was there to do. Dorne had remained aloof, as it had done under the ineffectual rule of his brother, the North was in open rebellion, and the Vale remained under the control of a cretin in Lysa Arryn. There was too much to be done to be smug.

'My terms are simple,' he informed Tyrion, and Olenna, who had seated herself upon a stool which had been hastily provided by one of the Tyrell bannermen. 'Surrender the city. Surrender the Iron Throne, and acknowledge my right to sit upon it. Reject the false claims of Joffrey Waters – he will not be named Lannister or Baratheon – and surrender to me with the city he, his siblings and his mother. Tywin Lannister will face a trial to account for his crimes in supporting his grandson as king.'

Tyrion remained impassive, as did Olenna, and Stannis pressed on; he had had too much time to think about what he would demand to pull back now. 'An area to be determined – by negotiation between myself as King, and Highgarden – will be surrendered to my allies, though to assuage any doubts it will not be significantly large. The food and provender of the Reach will be placed at the disposal of the Crown, myself, though again it will be through negotiation that such amounts will be determined. They will not be onerous to the point of rejection. When I sit the Throne, I will be King; acknowledged by all Seven Kingdoms; the Reach and the Westerlands will supply what troops and provisions I require. There will be no retaliatory confiscations; though it pains me, I will not seek revenge on any Lord or Knight who has supported those who heretofore have supported my enemies, including you.'

Leclerc cleared his throat, and Stannis remembered their odd demand, to which he had no objection. 'In each of the constituent kingdoms, you will establish schools to teach those who so desire their letters and numbers, including the Stormlands and Crownlands,' he looked at Tyrion, 'and the Westerlands. When the North and the Vale come into the Fold, I will make the same demand and insist on the same conditions. The smallfolk – the common people – have too long been excluded from deliberations of import. That ends now.' He remembered an expression he had been taught by DuPris. _You either allow reform from above, or face revolution from below._ He also remembered what he had seen on Corsica, the remnants of an entire civilisation based on a system which had left nobility behind, and what wonders they had thus achieved. He would have the same for the Seven Kingdoms if it took twenty generations, as long as it was under the rule of twenty generations of Baratheons.

Tyrion looked at Kevan and Olenna; the former seemed unsure, as ever he had without his brother present, but the latter nodded; she had expected far worse from the unyielding Lord of Dragonstone, such was his reputation, and what he proposed did not unduly burden the Reach or House Tyrell, her primary concern.

Tyrion had other concerns. 'I can agree to most of that,' he replied. 'I will yield Joffrey and Cersei, but not Tommen or Myrcella, who in any case is betrothed to Trystane of Dorne, at least for the moment. They are innocent children; born of incest, yes, but they have committed no crimes. You may take from them the name Baratheon, which they do not merit, but I ask you allow them the name of House Lannister, under the protection of Casterly Rock, though I promise you they will be excluded from any succession or title.'

'No,' Stannis told him immediately. 'I will allow them to live, if it is so important, but they must not be allowed a Name, they take the name of bastards, which is what they are, and the Dornish betrothal will be broken. I will deal with Dorne myself, absent Lannister interference. Additionally, the Redwyne Fleet will be at the disposal of the Crown upon my taking it, without limitation.'

'So be it,' Tyrion replied reluctantly 'But my father will be allowed the option of taking the Black upon the outcome of a trial which we all know will have but one verdict.'

Stannis thought quickly to himself – he held no personal animosity against Tywin, in the same way he very much did against Mace Tyrell, who with agreement now would be beyond his vengeance for his behaviour at Storm's End, and such a general as the Old Lion was at the disposal of the Watch was a bargain for both. He nodded. 'I agree.' He looked then at Tyrion. 'You want nothing for yourself for this action?'

'I am the Imp,' Tyrion replied sardonically. 'My father has always made it clear that to even survive is more than I deserve.'

Shireen moved to a position beside her father. She was dressed in black, as ever, but rather than dresses she was wearing soft breeches beneath a short, armoured skirt; the others looked at her in surprise, both at her attire and the sword at her side, and her willingness to move into the middle of such delicacy. She pulled at her father's arm, and he reached down to listen to her. 'He deserves better than mere survival, father,' she told him earnestly. 'He has given you the throne.'

'The French have given me the throne, girl,' he told her gruffly, but quietly so the others could not hear.

'But he could give you the Westerlands without conquest,' she told him.

He considered her words, and stood straight. 'Tyrion Lannister, Lord of Casterly Rock, Warden of the West, take me to the Iron Throne.'


End file.
